Title (and later: “she’s passed from woman to woman”)
• Motherhood = delivery of life
• Baby girl is being delivered from the East to the West
• Voice’s mother is an intermediary bringing female babies to new families in USA
• Association with rescue and salvation (e.g. the Lord’s Prayer ‘deliver us from evil’)
• The poet voice is also is the deliverer of this story
Form
• Written in tercets – formal, regular structure reflects accepted cultural norms;
constant, on-going occurrence.
• Stanzas often one long sentence – continual flow of events. Full stops and caesuras
are emphatic (e.g. “But they are crying.”, “woman / To woman. She returns”)
• Isolated line after first three stanzas in Kerala – stands out, emphasizing this ‘one’
and its delivery to the West (“This is the one my mother will bring.”)
• Final line isolated – emphasizes the recurring cycle (“Trudge home to lie down for
their men again.”)
• Sub-headings provide extra information and a sense of the cultural contrasts
(Kerala vs Milwaukee).
Voice and context
This poem concerns the cultural issue of unwanted female children, which results in
neglect and even infanticide, and the extent to which gender and physical descriptors
(“crippled or dark or girls”) determine a person’s value in a society. Doshi focuses on the
cultural divisions between the East (India) and the West (USA) – commenting on the these
two contrasting countries and cultured that she has lived in.
The tone of the poem is matter of fact and unadorned, using simple language to reflect
how this treatment of new-born females is normalised. As a former journalist, Doshi’s
objective setting out of facts rather than sensational style creates a sense of realism and
poignancy. Emotion is conveyed subtly, such as through weighted verb choices (“toss”,
“trudge”).
Doshi is careful to create a sense of contemporary reality and relevance as opposed to a
historical and distant narrative – the use of the present tense, generalised observations
(“collect children” and “Where mothers go”), and the cyclical, even helpless, nature of
the ending (“lie down for their men again”).
Possible themes
• Motherhood
• Gender – role and expectations of women
• Prejudice and discrimination
• Suffering
• Cultural contrasts and cultural identity
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