Billy Collins' "The Lanyard" A Perfect Mothers Day Poem
Billy Collins' "The Lanyard" is a perfect Mother's Day poem. The narrator reflects on a lanyard , a simple woven bracelet, he made for his mother one year while away at summer camp. His memory was triggered by a simple daily event: he stumbled upon the word "lanyard" while leafing through a dictionary one day amid a flurry of busy activities. He was "ricocheting" off the "blue walls," indicating that his reverie helped him to discover the core of what matters most in life: family and love. Thinking about the lanyard, the narrator seems rueful for not ever being able to truly repay his mother for the selflessness and sacrifices she makes for her children. He lists a litany of maternal gestures from being milked from the breast to being fully fed, clothed, and educated all at her expense. "And I gave her a lanyard," the narrator notes, indicating that nothing he can do could ever repay his mother for her work. Yet any guilt the narrator feels over giving his mother such a simple gift as a lanyard is quickly mitigated by the wisdom that a mother's love is pure and unconditional. The gesture of gratitude and kindness the lanyard represented was more than enough to repay her. As the narrator states, the small gift "would be enough to m
Each stanza of "The Lanyard" is exactly six lines long but the meter is irregular and there is no rhyme scheme. The poem starts out in the present moment because the narrator states, "The other day I was ricocheting slowly. In the following four stanzas, the rhythm quickens and becomes faster via the use of shorter phrases and sentences marked by more frequent use of punctuation. The theme of never being able to fully repay the sublime effort it takes to raise a child is one that resonates with all readers especially around Mother's Day. The shift in tone is immediately apparent at the start of the fourth stanza: "She gave me life and milk from her breasts, / and I gave her a lanyard. The narrator emphasizes the work he put into the lanyard too through repetitive phrasing: "strand over strand" and "again and again. However, the lanyard is more than just a red and white boxy-looking bracelet. Suggesting that the lanyard was useless establishes the tone and central theme of the poem. For example, in the first stanza, the narrator uses a curious phrase: "ricocheting slowly," (line 1). The first and second stanzas are integral to the theme of the poem because they establishes the narrator's tone as being reflective. Collins repeats the structure again in the sixth stanza when the narrator states, "Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, / strong legs, bones and teeth, / and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, / and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp," (lines 31-34). The first three stanzas are structured similarly, though: each is one complete sentence. Collins introduces the central theme of the poem in the third stanza, immediately before a noticeable change of tone and rhythm. The narrator is introducing the title object as something that is useless on a practical level but which has powerful symbolic and sentimental value.
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