The theme for Blog Action Day 2008 is poverty. Part of a writer’s job is to try to understand another person’s experience well enough to write about it. This year Writers in the Schools (WITS) is sharing a student poem about the Dorothea Lange photograph “Migrant Mother” to help raise awareness of this important issue. You can find out more about Blog Action Day from their website. Everyone is welcome to participate in the event.
After Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother”
How could this be?
I tried to make everything right.
I tried to get money by selling the tent.
Only lost the shelter that we bought with all our might.
Got a little food for the kids.
We will eat the scrap.
I think we shouldn’t have moved.
Or chosen a better place on the map.
I feel like bursting out.
But I need to show courage.
If only we had food,
Even a small bowl of porridge.
The porridge would help.
We could save every drop.
It would give us energy,
so we would have more strength to work on the crop.
We need a little extra
To help us at least sit.
I need a miracle,
but I probably won’t get it.
By Hansi, 7th grade
[Photo credit for reproduction of Dorothea Lange's "Migrant Mother": Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection, LC-USF34-9058-C]
Oh Hansi, this poem is right on target. What great insight you have. You have reflected her desperation well.
You pulled her from the photo into life and showed her thoughts. Wonderful…
Such a sad situation! Great poem, though! You really get to the heart of the matter!
Spoken from the heart. One great work.
mortal thoughts
The anti-selective effect of the modern mass slaughter of the healthy youth of all nations is hardly outweighed by the consideration that in more primitive conditions war may have had a positive value in letting the fittest survive. ,
Migrant Mother sat quietly
without a question
life upset
by the Great depression
Many homeless
and unemployed
hard to raise a family
with the economy destroyed