Parents

“Parents” attempts to speak about a common truth. While everyone has different experiences in their lives, including various kinds of relationships with their parents, the poem’s thesis is as universal a concept as there is for people, no matter the time they live in or the place. The poem says time offers perspective. And in the speaker’s mind, that perspective comes from the relationship people have with their parents.

To understand the poem’s message, it is important to consider the speaker. He writes the poem from a position of understanding, suggesting he is already an experienced adult at the beginning of the poem. He presents the perspective of both a child and a parent, and he presents his perspective through the first-person plural. By using the first-person plural, the speaker tries to speak for all people. He believes his experience is universal. Using words like “we” and “our” makes the reader feel included in the poet’s experience. The poet’s perspective also suggests a kind of wisdom. He writes with the confidence that others share his experiences, and the only way he knows this is because he is experienced enough to have seen the things he describes in his own life and in other people’s lives.

Not only does Meredith write the poem in the first-person plural, but he also uses normal speech patterns and chooses not to use elevated syntax or formal poetic structure. The use of free verse and the conversational tone add to the speaker’s ethos. This speaker is trying to speak to all people, whether they read poetry or not. The speaker mimics everyday speech patterns, including speaking in full sentences as opposed to the complex syntax other poets often use. Even the punctuation and capitalization in the poem are standard. The only thing that visually makes this a poem is the organization of the sentences into lines and stanzas. The effect of all of this is that the poem feels more like a person talking to the reader as opposed to a poet crafting an elaborate work of art.

To enhance this effect even more, the speaker has a personality. His personality comes through in lines like “They get wrinkles where it is better / smooth, odd coughs, and smells” (Lines 10-11) and “The effrontery, barely imaginable, / of having caused us. And of how” (Lines 13-14). That first couplet (Lines 10-11) presents a generalized image of what happens when people age, but even though the lines are vague, they are relatable to anyone who has known an aging person. Meredith delivers these lines with the ease, simplicity, and innocence of a child commenting on an old person’s looks. But contrast those lines with Line 13, and the speaker now shows his sophisticated grasp of language. The word “effrontery” is not commonly used; combined with the poem’s earlier use of the word “dandle” (Line 5), the speaker reveals he can channel both a childlike perspective and the perspective of an educated adult. Line 14 combines both perspectives with a bit of a juvenile joke presented in a witty, complex way. The sentence “And of how” (Line 14) jokes about the effrontery of thinking about how the speaker’s parents literally made him. The line is humorous, but it also speaks to the taboo and psychological dilemma people have when they think about their parents’ sexuality.

Ultimately, though, the poem is about the cyclical nature of existence. All people are born, all people age, and all people die. This poem focuses on the realization of that cycle and the way human beings change because of it. There is a balance of comedy and tragedy in this. The comedy is in the way children are naive and innocent in their judgements about adults. Meredith presents the innocence of childhood and the frustration of adolescence as little more than humorous, uninformed stages of life. But at the end of the poem, that innocence of “Everything / they do is wrong” (Line 17-18) turns to the tragedy of “they … die, / taking with them the last explanation, // how we came out of the wet sea / or wherever they got us from” (Line 19-22). And in the end, the child who once proclaimed, “Their lives: surely / we can do better than that” (Line 15-16) is now crying and “wrinkling, / to [their] uncomprehending children and grandchildren” (Line 25-26). The poem ends there, suggesting this cycle of growth, change, and loss of innocence repeats forever.

Whether the poem ends with a melancholy feeling of expiring time or with a reflective feeling of understanding is up to each individual reader.