It is More Than a Poem, it's a Memory.

Photographs in my mind.

"The Grandmother"
by Elizabeth Madox Roberts

"When Grandmother comes to our house,
She sits in the chair and sews away.
She cuts some pieces just alike
And makes a quilt all day.

I watch her bite the little thread,
Or stick the needle in and out,
And then she remembers her grandmother's house,
And what her grandmother told her about

And how a very long ago-
She tells it while she cuts and strips-
We used to live in Mary-land,
And there was a water with ships.

But that was long before her day,
She says, and so I like to stand
Beside her chair, and then I ask,
"Please tell about in Mary-land.""

Grandma played a major role in my life.

I was born in Baltimore, near the water mentioned in the poem. Mom went to work in a department store, and we lived with Grandma and Pop, my grandfather. Unfortunately, my parents divorced in an era when this was rare.

The poem "The Grandmother " vividly describes my grandma sitting by the living room window, sewing quilts and other items. I remember how she threaded the needle and how she bit the thread. For me, now in my eighties, these are more than memories. These are vivid pictures in my mind.

Grandma's biting on the thread and putting it into the eye of a needle creates a sense in the reader's consciousness. It also symbolizes how memories are threaded together carefully and deliberately, much like the quilt she is making. The quilt is an embodiment of the family's memories and shared lives. The grandmother sewed, reminiscing about her grandmother, from whom she inherited stories.

The long-ago mention of "Maryland" and water with ships ignites an image of the time from which family roots can be traced and how these spread to other lands. It accounts for the significance of ancestral heritage to the family.

All the small stories must then be like that quilt with small patches of history, meticulously stored and left to posterity. Through whose eyes the poem is narrated, the child is very interested in all these stories, hence, the urge to stay beside the grandmother's chair and ask about "in Mary-land." As it repeats, "Please tell about in Mary-land," so much emphasizes the child's desire to know of their heritage, longingly needing the ability to identify place through family lineage.

The poem breaks down the bond between the grandmother and child, where telling stories becomes a bridge for the generational gap and the conveyance of cultural and familial values. The poem's structural simplicity, the simplicity of the language used, and the very soft rhythm are all very much in tune with the simplicity and warmth of the grandmother's persona.

Yet, running under this simplicity, it reflects on the profundity of preserving family history and the elders maintaining the linkage to one's heritage. Therefore, the grandmother's quilting becomes a powerful symbol of how families are stitched together through shared memories and experiences, with each generation adding its piece to the fabric of the family's history.

The poem discusses how family history and tradition are maintained and passed over generations. The grandmother's quilt-making is a metaphor for piecing together memories, while the child's fascination with her stories underscores the enduring connection between past and present. Through this simple yet deeply meaningful poem, Roberts reveals the importance of memory and heritage and how strong the ties that hold families together are across time.

During hot summer evenings, the family would sit around Grandma by the open living room window. Grandma and Grandpa would reminisce about life in Russia and in the Lower East Side tenements in Manhattan. It left my brother and me with precious memories of family history.