His Speed and Strength
“His Speed and Strength,” published in Alicia Os-
triker’s 1980 collection The Mother/Child Papers,
is a mother’s meditation on both her son’s matura-
tion and the human race’s survival. The poem’s set-
ting, its references to popular culture, and its
conversational diction all belong to contemporary
America. The speaker’s allusions to mythical god-
desses and poet Walt Whitman, however, signal the
timeless relevance of the mother’s thoughts. In her
book of essays, Writing Like a Woman, Ostriker
says of the period in which she wrote this poem:
“It was impossible [in the 1970s] to avoid medi-
tating on the meaning of having a boy child in time
of war, or to avoid knowing that ‘time of war’
means all of human history.” In the poem, the
mother watches her son display “speed and
strength” on his bicycle and at the town pool. She
fancies herself a modern version of the ancient god-
desses Niké and Juno as she competes with and
protects her son. Through a series of ordinary im-
ages, the mother observes the masculine and fem-
inine traits that compose her son’s emerging adult
identity. The poem implies that our culture opposes
these traits at its own peril. On the one hand, the
mother is proud of her son’s developing speed,
strength, and competitiveness—all traditionally
masculine traits. But, since these traits also suit
boys to become war fodder, the mother hopes to
nurture in her son a (traditionally feminine) sense
of connection to other people and things. If he
maintains this connection, his strength may serve
constructive, not destructive, ends. The son showsAlicia Ostriker
1980
9567082 _PFS_V19hissp 095 - 112 .qxd 9/16/2003 9:29 M Page 95