Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Poem "My Mother" By Mahmoud Darwish (Personal Reviews)

“My Mother”, another powerful and meaningful poem from Mahmoud Darwish. He was considered to be the most important contemporary Arab poet working today. He was born in 1942 in the village of Barweh in the Galilee, which was razed to the ground by the Israelis in 1948. As a result of his politi-cal activism he faced house arrest and imprisonment. Darwish was the editor of Ittihad Newspaper before leaving in 1971 to study for a year in the USSR. His poems are known throughout the Arab world, and several of them have been put to music. His poetry has gained great sophistication over the years, and has enjoyed international fame for a long time. He has published around 30 poetry and prose collections, which have been translated into 35 languages. He is the editor in chief and founder of the prestigious literary review Al Karmel, which has resumed publication in January 1997 out of the Sakakini Centre offices. He published in 1998 the poetry collection: Sareer el Ghariba (Bed of the Stranger), his first collection of love poems. In 2000 he published Jidariyya (Mural) a book consisting of one poem about his near death experience in 1997.


Mahmoud Darwish, poem “My Mother” shows mother as symbolism in someone’s life. Mothers tend to relate to our emotional concern for both ourselves and for the people around us. As far as yourself is concerned the mother maybe symbolises your wishes for reassurance, your own worries and concerns about the way your life is going. The mother may symbolise your own wish to take a cautious and safe approach and not wanting to make hasty decisions(a wish not to be pressured). The mother can also symbolise our behavior towards others.


I long for my mother's bread
My mother's coffee
Her touch
Childhood memories grow up in me
Day after day
I must be worth my life
At the hour of my death
Worth the tears of my mother.

Obviously mothers play an important role in our lives. They try to influence us and persuade us to do what they want. In many cases the appearance of a mother in a dream is literal and links to there involvement in the dreams issue. But in many other cases mothers play a symbolic role and link to our own need to show concern for others in a motherly way. They also link to our need to have others show concern for us or for us recognising that we are feeling upset.

And if I come back one day
Take me as a veil to your eyelashes
Cover my bones with the grass
Blessed by your footsteps
Bind us together
With a lock of your hair
With a thread that trails from the back of your dress
I might become immortal
Become a God
If I touch the depths of your heart.
Often the mother appears as a symbol of our own need for reassurance or support in some issue within your current life. Life is complex and a mothers appearance is to help us navigate our way through complicated decisions and emotions. Often mothers symbolise our need to take a cautious and safe approach. It symbolises moments when we are taking time over decisions and doing the right thing. For example :
If I come back
Use me as wood to feed your fire
As the clothesline on the roof of your house
Without your blessing
I am too weak to stand.

Mothers can symbolise situations where we feel secure and happy. The dream may relate to feelings that this security is under threat or that you wish for such a security. Mothers can also be symbols for a need for closure. They are saying that enough is enough. They recognize that some direction we are moving in is not right and we need to just accept things. Often we will not accept that a relationship is over and the appearance of a mother maybe shows that we are beginning to accept the need to bring an end to a disastrous relationship. It does not give us any good emotionally. For instance:

I am old
Give me back the star maps of childhood
So that I
Along with the swallows
Can chart the path
Back to your waiting nest.


Most of all, mother’s symbolism in this poem brings the central theme about love between son and his mother.
Personal Reviews By ; Mohd Adi Hafiz Bin Mohd Johari (National University of Malaysia - UKM)

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