Cathy Song on Mother Daughter Relationship - Essay Example

? Cathy song on mother daughter relationship Cathy song was Chinese and Korean origin poet who was born and bred in Hawaii. Her interaction with different regional and ethnic identities made her more sensitive of those relationships which bring different people close together. In this regard two strains of thought prevail throughout Song’s poetry. At one place the family ties are the binding force that connect people. On the other hand, the characters feel themselves trapped into these emotional webs and have a desire to fly towards outside world to get some freedom. This realization seems to have become an impetus for her creative sensibility. The recurrence of this theme of filial connections forms the pervasive subject and the thematic content of her poetry. Song has credited her early interest in writing to her family’s travels: “Our family travels started my writing. I guess I was around nine years old when I decided I wanted to be the family chronicler” ( “ Poetry Foundation”). From this quote we can infer that incessant traveling with her family does have an impact on her creative genius and may also have made her admit the importance of these family relationships in a person’s life. “Song’s poetic oeuvre is united by her abiding focus on family. The moral ties that bind women to children and parents, to their community, to tradition, and to the land are continuously interwoven throughout her verse” ( “ Poetry Foundation” ). We also find a mention of some broader themes like impact of immigration on the lives of the people. But whatever she sees these things, she sees them through the kaleidoscope of her family. In her poetry, Cathy Song usually examines the everyday world that touches and affects her. Cucinella observes: As such, possible topics for Song’s poetry include the lives of her grandparents in Hawaii following their immigration from China and Korea, the resistance of third generation Asian Americans to the traditional Asian Ways and their paradoxical needs to embrace their Asian ancestry, and the more mundane aspect of her life as a daughter, mother , and wife (353). In her third collection of poem, School Figure, “Song explores further than before relationships between husband and wife, mother and son, and mother and daughter. “ The Grammar Silk” explores how a mother wishes a better life and escape for her daughter”( Cucinella 353). In the following lines we will explore the extent and scope of this recurrent theme of family ties in Cathy’s poetry. Our probe will further be delimited to mother-daughter relationship in her poetry. All the nuances of this relationship will be explored to strengthen our thesis that Cathy’s close association with her family became the cause of her creative genius and made her imprint different facets of her connection with her parents and especially of her mother. Our analysis will be based on three of Song’s representative poems:” The Grammar of Silk”, “The Youngest Daughter” and “The White Wash”. The Grammar of Silk The grammar of silk shows a mother’ concern for her daughter and desire to see her past and future in her. The mother is trying to accomplish what was missing in her. “She was determined that I should sew/ as if she knew what she herself was missing” ( Song Lines 49-50).That’s why she has sent her to a sewing school. She wants to ensure that her daughter should be an accomplished seamstress and should learn this art to the perfection. The mother’s choice seems to be pleasing for her daughter. On Saturdays in the morning my mother sent me to Mrs. Umemoto’s sewing school. It was cool and airy in her basement, pleasant—a word I choose (Song Lins 1-4). The place is not just a sewing school. It assumes a higher existence and transforms into a safe haven for women. Song reflects: This evidently was a sanctuary, a place where women confined with children conferred, consulted the oracle, the stone tablets of the latest pattern books( Song Lines 27-30). The Youngest Daughter This poem beautifully depicts the conflict between filial duty and a desire to escape from this duty. Cathy’s protagonist or Cathy herself in this poem tends her ailing mother and serves her in her every possible way. But at the same the desire to go beyond this intimate world is at the back of our protagonist’s mind. The mother also knows about the wavering nature of her girl and that’s why there is trust gap between mother and daughter. Cathy has beautifully narrated this conflict and has probed into the subtle nature of our relationships. The girl in the peom “ The Youngest Daughter” reflects: She knows I am not to be trusted, even now planning my escape. As I toast to her health with the tea she has poured, a thousand cranes curtain the window, fly up in a sudden breeze. Love and affection between daughter and mother The parent-child relationship is physical and the very mundaneness of the connection can be seen in the mother-daughter relationship. This physical connection starts from the very birth of the child when the mother “delights in conception and pregnancy”. The description of this unique experience can be found “ in wistful ode, ‘ The Day You Are Born’, which marvels at a tactile fetus no bigger than her thumbnail/ burrowing itself into her body” (353). The poem shows the magical power of motherly touch which again even soothe the ailments. The speaker honours her mother for her gravelly breathing and affectionately gruff voice. The poem pivots from mother tending daughter to daughter easing her diabetic mother. The speakers soaps her mother’s body feeds her tea, rice, pickled turnip, and gingered fish The idyllic love of the daughter for her mother is disturbed with the thought the world outside is calling her away from her filial bond. The poetess along with the soothing sensations of parental love also cherishes desire to quench her thirst for love from the world outside the window curtain. The White Porch So much hair, my mother used to say, grabbing the thick braided rope in her hands while we washed the breakfast dishes, discussing dresses and pastries (“ Poetry Foundation”). The mother-daughter relationship has its own subtleties and warmth. The mundaneness involved in this relationship has been beautifully described by Cathy. She gives the minute details of the household chores that bring a daughter close to her mother. The mother combing or braiding her daughter’s hair is a very common scene to be seen in households which show how close these women are. The other household chores like dish washing provides the daughters and opportunity to share certain things with their mother. Thus the two show a unity that is the result of this filial bond between the two women: one a mature women who has sufficient knowledge of this world and other, a growing daughter who is yet to see the world with her own eyes. The mother transfers her point views to this little women who silently and slowly learns the ways of the world through her mother. Cathy Song’s poetic genius developed from her limited world. The vast expanse around her squeezed into a narrow shell of her family. The miniature world was be-all and end all of this sensitive writer. She does not philosophize or rationalize the bigger things. Rather she concentrates on the smaller things. The abstractness of this world does not attract her. Rather the mundaneness of relationships, the feeling of togetherness, the closeness with the parents, grandparents and the children is an omnipresent theme in her poetry. The vast travelling experience and the immigrant experience of the grand-parents instilled in her minds the importance of those people who were close to her. Though she knows that there is an inner defiant urge in her which occasionally allures her to detach herself with these ties and establish an existence of her own, yet the strength of ties is so great that she does not break away with this filial ties. Works Cited "Biography: Cathy Song." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, n.d. Web. 27 Feb. 2013. . Cucinella, Catherine. Contemporary American Women Poets: An A-to-Z Guide. Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 2002. Print. Snodgrass, Mary E. Encyclopedia of Feminist Literature. New York: Facts On File, 2006. 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