Mama by Charles Bukowski

  Charles Bukowski



Biographical Facts

1920-1994

He born in Germany, but lived in New York. He studied in Los Angeles City college but he dropping out the studies, and he became an alcoholic homeless. Then, he took up it until 35 years old.


Poem Mama by Charles Bukowski 


 Analysis 

 

This poem of Charles Bukowski has internal rhyme because words through the stanzas share de same vowel sounds. For example, in lines 2 and 3 Bukowski use the words "Mouth" and "ground" which ones share only the vowels /a/ and /ʊ/ not consonants, so this rhyme is classified like a slant rhyme.  Furthermore,  there is alliteration since some words repeat the same consonant at the beginning of the word in the same line. For example, in lines “the last of my left / very little left, all harp-like”(Bukowski line 15, 17) the words "last" and "left";"little"and "left" again, share the consonant /l/ at the beginning. Besides, This poem lacks of rhyme scheme because neither its stanzas nor its lines end with a pattern sound. Moreover, I think the poem has a narrator in first person because he uses the pronoun I, and he is telling himself story. Although, the title is Mama I infer the narrator is a man because he says he is wearing a suit. He uses the title Mama because this word we usually say when we have trouble, if we feel bad, or if we feel fear. On the other hand, I consider this poem is some difficult to understand because it has not coherence in their sentences since there is not connectors, and the lines say different things. However, at the end I discovered that these things although being different, are characteristics about the same event. I had to read many times to understand what did the poem mean. It was in this last stanza “but p.s. -- Hector Richmond in the next tomb thinks only of Mozart and candy caterpillars. He is very bad company.”(Bukowski 28-33) when I infer that the narrator was dead because he says he is next to someone who is in the tomb, so he es in one tomb, too. Besides,  at the beginning of the poem Bukowski says "here I am in the ground/ the dogs run by and stop and piss on my stone / my suit is looking bad / I can’t do anything"(1-27), so with all those signals I make a relation with a funeral or graveyard. Even, he can not say mama, he is died, he cannot. Why does he want to say mama? He felt fear, he wants help.  

Work Cited 

Bukowski, Charles. Mama. Web My poetic side,

https://mypoeticside.com/show-classic-poem-4328 . Accessed 18 November 2020

 

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