English Literature KS3 / GCSE: 'Praise Song for My Mother' by Grace Nichols (analysis)

I grew up in a small country village along the Atlantic coast in Guyana. To me it still remains a very magical place in my consciousness and I think, in a way, my creativity is linked somehow to where I grew up, that small country village of my childhood.

You were water to me, deep and bold and fathoming. You were moon's eye to me, pull and grained and mantling…

I wrote it some time after my mum had died. I was just reflecting on her one day and what she meant to me because I loved her very much. I wanted to capture, you know, something about her qualities.

You were sunrise to me, rise and warm and streaming…

This was the only photograph I have of my mother and father. It's at my elder sister's wedding. My mum is at the very back here. I come from a big family. There were seven of us. She had seven children, six girls and one brother. We all are extremely close as a family, doing things together.

Because my mother had so many of us, we were allowed a lot of freedom. We were allowed to go fishing and we'd be off on our own for ages. And she told us stories at night and fairy tales. I'm sure that, you know, is very much part of my consciousness.

My mum was really a lovely person. She was very kind of… very warm and open. Our house was always full of people visiting. She loved cooking. That's why some of the images in the poem related to cooking. I've also spoken of the flame tree. It's a beautiful tree, lining the avenues of Guyana, and it has red flowers. It's very beautiful to look at.

You were the fish's red gill to me, the flame tree's spread to me, the crab's leg, the fried plantain smell, replenishing, replenishing. Go to your wide futures, you said.

In my late teens I wanted to become a novelist, but after coming to England, I don't know if it was the emotional separation, being away from your culture and all that you know, to England, which is so different, maybe that separation drove me more into poetry.

The Creole language that we use, the everyday language of the people, which has been influenced by Africa, and all the other races in the Caribbean have influenced the Creole way of speaking. And then we have so-called standard English, which isn't standard really because English is a complex and beautiful language. So having both to draw on is very exciting for me as a poet.

You trust in your instincts all the way through the poems. It's like a little adventure for you because you don't quite know where it will take you, how it will turn out or end up. You look back at some of the poems you have written and see them as your children, in a way. They form their own lives and futures and, whatever happens, you just let them go and let people interpret them. After a time, you know, you can't hold on to them. They're meant to be shared.