18 pages • 36 minutes read
Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me
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Further Reading & Resources
Related Poems
“Mothers” by Nikki Giovanni (1972)
In Giovanni’s poem, the speaker pays tribute to her mother, recounting the time she first truly recognized her mother: her beauty, her waiting. The mother beckons for the speaker to come closer, so she can teach her a poem. The speaker takes this learned poem and teaches it to her son, sharing the poetic gift and continuing the familial cycle. The poem also acknowledges, like Angelou’s, the tension between mother and speaker when they last meet, as in the moment they are “read[ing] separate books” (Line 6).
“Women” by Alice Walker (1973)
In Walker’s poem, the speaker pays homage to the women who came before her and paved the way, particularly “my mama’s generation” (Line 2). Like Angelou’s poem, Walker’s is a celebration of the good and the bad, but instead of focusing just on the mother’s role in the speaker’s life, Walker brings in the entire generation of her mother’s time—her feminist ancestors.
“Lineage” by Margaret Walker (1989)
In Walker’s poem, the speaker acknowledges not her mother, but her grandmothers, who “were strong” (Line 1) and paved the way for her. Walker lists the ways in which her grandmothers toiled, sang, and spoke, ending the poem on a melancholic question with “Why am I not as they?” (Line 12).
“Untitled Poem” by Rupi Kaur (2017)
In this poem from Kaur’s The Sun and Her Flowers (2017) collection, the speaker is in her mother’s arms, similar to the cradle imagery Angelou evokes in “Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me,” when the mother gives a piece of advice comparing flowers to people and how they have to wilt “in order to bloom” (Line 12).
Further Literary Resources
Maya Angelou: A Glorious Celebration by Marcia Ann Gillespie, Rosa Johnson Butler, and Richard A. Long (2008)
In this half tribute, half scrapbook, Angelou’s niece Butler and lifelong friends Gillespie and Butler showcase Angelou’s personality, talents, and achievements in different facets of her life through family photographs and letters. Oprah Winfrey provides a foreword to the book. Chapter 1 acknowledges Angelou’s continuous momentum: “Now, as she steps in the eightieth year of her life, she remains as curious and zestful as a young woman, maintaining a schedule that many people half her age would find daunting.”
Critical Companion to Maya Angelou: A Literary Reference to Her Life and Work by Jacqueline S. Thursby (2011)
In this resource for students, teachers, and readers, Thursby includes a short biography of Angelou along with critical discussions and themes of her major writings, including her six autobiographies (not including Mom & Me & Mom, which was published two years later), her notable poems, essays, and children’s stories, as well as influences and related topics and people, including Michelle Obama, Harlem, and racism.
Mom & Me & Mom by Maya Angelou (2013)
In her seventh and final autobiography, a New York Times bestseller, Angelou chronicles her relationship with her mom Vivian Baxter, whom she calls “Lady.” When her parents divorced at age 3, Angelou went to live with her grandmother, feeling abandoned by her mother. When Angelou moved back to live with her mother years later, she began a new relationship, filled with balancing acts of pain, respect, and love between the two, a theme highlighted in her 2006 poem “Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me.”
Listen to Poem
American actor Shaun Baker recites Angelou's "Mother, A Cradle to Hold Me" for Mother's Day, 2020.
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By Maya Angelou
