The Full Text of “Praise Song for My Mother”
The Full Text of “Praise Song for My Mother”
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“Praise Song for My Mother” Introduction
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"Praise Song for My Mother," written by Guyanese poet Grace Nichols, celebrates the nourishing power of a mother's love. The speaker compares her mother to various aspects of nature in order to illustrate her mother's broad influence on her life, ultimately suggesting that her love and support were essential to the speaker's development into the person she is now. "Praise Song to My Mother" was published in Nichols's first poetry collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman, in 1983. Nichols wrote the poem not long after her own mother's death.
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“Praise Song for My Mother” Summary
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The speaker compares her mother to immensely deep, powerful water.
Her mother was like the roughly-textured moon that watches over the earth, exerting a gravitational pull, its gaze all-encompassing.
Her mother was the dawn, the time when the sun rises and spreads light and warmth across the sky.
Her mother was the red breathing organ of a fish, the bright red canopy of a tree, and the ever-present scent of crab legs and fried plantain.
Her mother told her to venture forth into the wide world.
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“Praise Song for My Mother” Themes
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The Nourishing Power of Motherhood
In "Praise Song to My Mother," which Grace Nichols wrote upon the death of her own mother, the speaker fondly recalls her mother and reflects on what she meant to her. She metaphorically compares her mother to elements of nature such as water, the moon, and the sun in order to illustrate the profound impact her mother had on her life. Through these images, the speaker honors her mother’s nourishing love and dedication, implying that her steady presence, guidance, and support were integral to the speaker’s growth into the person she is today.
Throughout the poem, the speaker focuses on how her mother’s presence shaped and influenced her (the speaker’s) life. She says that mother was “water,” “moon’s eye,” and “sunrise” to her, suggesting that she was the speaker’s entire world. The specific natural metaphors the speaker uses convey that her mother was essential to the speaker’s development. She says her mother was “water,” / deep and bold and fathoming,” for example, suggesting that her mother’s presence felt as endless and nourishing as the ocean. At the same time, this image perhaps suggests that her mother felt a little unknowable or mysterious to the speaker—a figure larger than life.
Calling her mother “the moon’s eye,” meanwhile, suggests that she always watched over the speaker, influencing the speaker in much the same way as the moon exerts a gravitational “pull” on the ocean. And in describing her mother as “mantling,” the speaker suggests that her mother’s presence enveloped her, making her feel safe and loved. The speaker also says her mother was the “sunrise,” suggesting that she was comforting, a reliable source of warmth and light. Light, like water, is essential to life; this metaphor thus further implies that the speaker’s mother was essential to her growth.
Indeed, the speaker’s mother provided her with everything she needed to become the person that she is today. She says that her mother was “the fish’s red gill,” perhaps hinting that she associates breath itself with her mother. She adds that her mother was “the flame tree’s spread”—an image suggesting shelter, warmth, and passion. And the speaker also associates her mother with “the crab’s leg” and the always-present “smell” of “fried plantain.” This implies that her mother was always providing for her, cooking for her, showing her love in tangible, practical ways.
The speaker’s mother ultimately gave her everything she needed in order to “go wide to [her] futures": to step out on her own, into a future filled with possibilities. Thanks to her mother’s love and support, the speaker felt like she could do anything.
Where this theme appears in the poem:- Lines 1-15
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Line-by-Line Explanation & Analysis of “Praise Song for My Mother”
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Lines 1-3
You were ...
... bold and fathomingThe speaker of the poem addresses her mother directly. The past tense verb "were" suggests that the speaker's mother has died and that the speaker is reflecting on the impact her mother had on her life. (Since Grace Nichols wrote this poem upon the death of her own mother, it's safe to assume that the speaker is Nichols herself.)
The speaker begins with a metaphor, saying that her mother was "water to me." Note that "to me": the speaker is specifically describing how her mother seemed to the speaker herself, presumably when she was young. "Water," of course, is essential to life. As such, the metaphor immediately conveys just how essential the speaker's mother was to her growth.
The speaker then elaborates on the metaphor by calling this water "deep and bold and fathoming." This might suggest a few things:
- The mother's presence felt endless, like a deep well of love, wisdom, and support.
- This line might also suggest that the speaker never fully understood her mother. Perhaps her mother was always a bit of a mystery to her, as mothers often are to their children. Her presence loomed so large in the speaker's life that the speaker could never hope to fully comprehend all her mother's depths.
- "Fathoming," meanwhile, is a pun. As a noun, fathom refers to a unit of measurement used in relation to water depth; as a verb, fathom means to grasp or understand something. The speaker may not have understood everything about her mother, but the poem implies that her mother understood an awful lot about her (the speaker); her "fathoming" (i.e., understanding) stretched down "fathoms."
- Her mother was also "bold," suggesting, perhaps, that she was fierce in her support for the speaker (or fierce in general, like strong current).
Polysyndeton (the lyrical use of coordinating conjunctions: "deep and bold and fathoming") gives this line a noticeable rhythm that evokes the rise and fall of waves. It also creates a piling-up effect, subtly emphasizing the immensity of the influence that the speaker's mother had on her daughter's life.
This stanza introduces readers to the poem's form as well. There's no punctuation here, let alone any regular meter or rhyme scheme. The use of free verse gives the poem a natural, organic feel, suggesting that this speaker is simply relaying what's in her heart—a true, deep-felt admiration for her mother. Enjambment, meanwhile, keeps the poem flowing smoothly down the page, like water itself.
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Lines 4-9
You were ...
... warm and streaming -
Lines 10-15
You were ...
... futures, you said
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“Praise Song for My Mother” Poetic Devices & Figurative Language
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Consonance
"Praise Song for My Mother" doesn't follow a steady meter or rhyme scheme, but it's still a very musical poem. That's thanks in part to frequent consonance (as well as a few more specific moments of alliteration).
Most noticeable, perhaps, is the /ing/ consonance in the concluding words of stanzas 1-4: "fathoming," "mantling," "streaming," and "replenishing." All these /ing/ endings suggest that the mother's love and support continue to enrich the speaker's life even though her mother is gone.
Other moments of consonance help to bring the poem's metaphors to life. The thudding /d/ sounds of line 3, for example, subtly evoke the very depth being described. The /b/ of bold, while not an example of consonance, is similarly resonant and adds to the effect:
deep and bold and fathoming
In the next stanza, muted /m/ alliteration ("moon's," "me," "mantling") fills the poem with a gentle, humming sound that conveys the speaker's reverence for her mother. That warm sound continues as consonance in the next stanza as well ("me," "warm," "streaming").
The poem's final stanzas are particularly musical. There's consonance of the /r/, /l/, and /p/ sounds, plus /f/ alliteration ("fishes," "flame," "fried," "futures"). Look at lines 10-14:
the fishes red gill to me
the flame tree's spread to me
the crab's leg/the fried plantain smell
replenishing replenishingThere's assonance here too, via the short /eh/ sounds of "red," "spread," "leg," "smell," and "replenishing." This burst of sound makes the poem's final lines all the more vivid and intense.
Where consonance appears in the poem:- Lines 1-2: “were / water”
- Line 3: “deep and bold and fathoming”
- Line 5: “moon's,” “me”
- Line 6: “and grained and mantling”
- Line 8: “me”
- Line 9: “warm,” “streaming”
- Line 11: “fishes red gill”
- Line 12: “flame tree's spread”
- Line 13: “crab's leg,” “fried plantain smell”
- Line 14: “replenishing replenishing”
- Line 15: “futures”
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Repetition
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Polysyndeton
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Metaphor
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"Praise Song for My Mother" Vocabulary
Select any word below to get its definition in the context of the poem. The words are listed in the order in which they appear in the poem.
- Fathoming
- Moon's eye
- Grained
- Mantling
- Gill
- Flame tree’s spread
- Plantain
- Replenishing
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(Location in poem: Line 3: “deep and bold and fathoming”)
To fathom is to make sense of something. A fathom also refers to a unit of length used in reference to water depth. The speaker is thus making a pun, suggesting that her mother's understanding of her daughter ran deep.
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Form, Meter, & Rhyme Scheme of “Praise Song for My Mother”
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Form
Though the poem doesn't explicitly state that the speaker's mother has died, the use of the past tense ("You were") implies that this "Praise Song" is an elegy. The poem also stems from the African tradition of praise songs, which typically use a series of short, descriptive phrases—often metaphors—to celebrate something. That's exactly what this poem does, with the speaker's mother being the subject of admiration.
Praise songs are also part of the oral tradition: poems that are memorized and passed down by word of mouth. As such, they don't have a set written form. Here, Nichols uses 15 lines of free verse spread out over five stanzas of irregular length. The repetition-packed short lines and stanzas help to evoke the rhythms and dramatic pauses that oral poets would use when reciting their poems aloud.
Visually, having the phrase "You were" occupy its own line at the beginning of stanzas 1-4 helps to emphasize that this poem is about a mother who is no longer present/alive. Meanwhile, concluding each of these same stanzas with long lines ending in gerunds ("fathoming," "mantling," etc) draws attention to the mother's continuing influence on the speaker's life.
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Meter
The poem doesn't use any sort of regular meter, but that doesn't mean it lacks rhythm. The poem's heavy use of repetition and parallelism makes it musical and memorable. Its language feels gently lyrical rather than rigidly controlled.
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Rhyme Scheme
As a free verse poem, "Praise Song for My Mother" doesn't use a rhyme scheme. Technically, one might characterize the gerunds that end four stanzas ("fathoming," "mantling," "streaming," "replenishing") as rhyming, but the effect is pretty subtle. The lack of a predictable rhyme scheme, like the lack of a strict meter, keeps the poem feeling free and flexible. There's plenty of music here, but it's not overly controlled.
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“Praise Song for My Mother” Speaker
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Grace Nichols wrote this poem upon her mother's death, and it's safe to assume the speaker and poet are one and the same. Yet because the speaker is reflecting on her mother's influence and celebrating who she was to her, she doesn't reveal much about herself. (Indeed, the speaker doesn't even need to be referred to as "she"—the poem works regardless of whether one interprets the speaker as a version of Nichols or not.) The only thing the reader really learns about the speaker is just how much her mother loved, supported, and shaped her throughout her life.
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“Praise Song for My Mother” Setting
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The poem takes place after the speaker has lost her mother. The past tense "You were" implies that her mother has died (or, maybe, is simply close to death); Nichols in fact wrote "Praise Song" following the death of her own mother. The presumably adult speaker uses this opportunity to reflect on the influence her mother had over the course of her life.
Beyond that, however, the poem doesn't have a specific setting. Its language is predominantly metaphorical, with the speaker equating her mother to aspects of nature such as water, the moon, sunrise, etc.
The imagery in the fourth stanza might be read as both metaphorical and indicative of where the speaker grew up. The speaker says her mother was
the fish's red gill to me
the flame tree's spread to me
the crab's leg/the fried plantain smell
replenishing replenishingThe speaker may have grown up somewhere close to the sea (thus eating lots of fish and crab), in a place where "plantain" is commonly eaten (since these foods were always being "replenish[ed]," it's safe to assume they were readily available). This was true for Nichols herself, who grew up in Guyana before later moving to the United Kingdom.
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Literary and Historical Context of “Praise Song for My Mother”
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Literary Context
Grace Nichols published "Praise Song for My Mother" in her first poetry collection, I is a Long-Memoried Woman, in 1983. The collection explores the enslavement of African peoples who were brought over to colonized countries in the Caribbean. It won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and was later adapted into a prize-winning film and BBC radio drama. Nichols has gone on to publish various poetry collections and novels and is now recognized as a major British poet, with her work being taught in UK schools as part of the AQA (Assessment and Qualifications Alliance) Anthology. In 2007, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Nichols, who was born in Guyana but moved to England in 1977, was part of a generation of Caribbean poets whose work tackled issues related to race, isolation, and the immigrant experience in an era of intense racism and xenophobia in the UK. Her work draws on both Caribbean and American Indian culture, folklore, and oral traditions. Indeed, "Praise Song for My Mother" refers directly to the oral traditions of her African ancestors (praise songs being a common poetic form in many African cultures). Another example of a modern praise song is Tsitsi Ella Jaji's "Praise Song for Patricia Jabbeh Wesley."
Historical Context
Grace Nichols was born in Guyana in 1950, at a time when the country was still a British colony. The British West Indies included many modern Caribbean nations, some of which remain part of the Commonwealth to this day. Guyana achieved independence from Britain in 1966.
Britain began colonizing the region in the 17th century and forcibly brought over millions of enslaved Africans to work on the islands. Even after decolonization in the 1950s and 1960s, many people in the Caribbean continued to struggle economically as a result of centuries of colonialism and racism—which, in turn, pushed many to immigrate to the UK in search of economic opportunity. This was true for Nichols herself, who immigrated to the UK in 1977.
Although many of Nichols's poems (including the vast majority published in I is a Long-Memoried Woman) deal explicitly with this legacy of colonization and enslavement, "Praise Song for My Mother" contains no real historical references, instead focusing on the relationship Nichols shared with her mother. Nichols has said her mother was a
warm, intelligent, loving woman who was full of stories, anecdotes and songs from her own childhood. People loved being around her and I can’t remember a single day when our home wasn’t visited by some friend, neighbour or relative who had dropped in “just fuh minute” but ended up staying hours.
The poem reflects Nichols's admiration for her mother's "warm[th]," "intelligence," and "lov[e]" through a series of metaphors comparing her to aspects of nature such as water, the moon, and the sun.
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More “Praise Song for My Mother” Resources
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External Resources
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Listen to the Poem Out Loud — A recording of Grace Nichols reading "Praise Song for My Mother."
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Learn More About the Poet — A brief biography and additional poems by Nichols via the Poetry Archive.
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An Introduction to Praise Songs — Read more about the African tradition of praise songs.
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Nichols on Her Relationship to Poetry — An interview in which Nichols discusses her writing process, influences, and love for children's poetry.
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LitCharts on Other Poems by Grace Nichols
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