Within Rita Dove’s poem “Daystar,” there is a mother who feels helpless to the limitations of motherhood. In the poem, the mother is the poet, who describes her experiences of being a stay at home mother. Rita feels as if she has no privacy and her responsibilities as a mother are never ending “she wanted a little room for thinking: but she saw diapers steaming on the line.” Because of this, Rita feels as if she is unable to progress in her life “where she was nothing, pure nothing, in the middle of the day.” While the auditor within the poem “Daystar” is the reader, as she sheds a bit of light on motherhood.
Within the poem “To a Daughter Leaving Home” written by Linda Pastan, the speaker is a mother who is speaking to her daughter.