What is Poverty? Jo Goodwin Parker

 

Jo Goodwin Parker was an anonymous person from

West Virginia, the Southern United States. Parker

mailed her essay to George Henderson, preferring

that the editor present no byline. George Henderson,

a professor at the University of Oklahoma, received it

while he was writing his 1971 book, America’s Other

Children: Public Schools Outside Suburbia.

It was signed “Jo Goodwin Parker”. No further information was ever discovered

about the essay or its source. Whether the author of this essay was in reality a woman

describing her own painful experiences or a sympathetic writer who had adopted her

persona, Jo Goodwin Parker remains a mystery. So in keeping with the spirit of its

initial publication, Parker’s essay is kept here without any biographical data about its

author.

Jo Goodwin Parker’s essay 'What is Poverty?' is about Parker who has personally

experienced rural poverty. She explains her story from childhood to adulthood. Her

struggles are overwhelming. Using examples drawn from personal experience, she

explains the meaning of poverty in this essay. Her use of connotative language creates

many harsh images of her experiences in a life of poverty illustrating the difficulties

and challenges her impoverished family experiences. The essay is a personal account,

addressed directly to the reader, about living in poverty.

English: Grade 11 275

Reading

You ask me what is poverty? Listen to me. Here I am, dirty, smelly, and with no

“proper” underwear on and with the stench of my rotting teeth near you. I will tell you.

Listen to me. Listen without pity. I cannot use your pity. Listen with understanding.

Put yourself in my dirty, worn out, ill-fitting shoes, and hear me.

Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt- and illness-stained mattress. The

sheets have long since been used for diapers. Poverty is living in a smell that never

leaves. This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the

strong smell of long-cooked onions. Onions are cheap. If you have smelled this smell,

you did not know how it came. It is the smell of the outdoor privy. It is the smell of

young children who cannot walk the long dark way in the night. It is the smell of the

mattress where years of “accidents” have happened. It is the smell of the milk which

has gone sour because the refrigerator long has not worked, and it costs money to get

it fixed. It is the smell of rotting garbage. I could bury it, but where is the shovel?

Shovels cost money.

Poverty is being tired. I have always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the

last baby came that I had chronic anemia caused from poor diet, a bad case of worms,

and that I needed a corrective operation. I listened politely—the poor are always

polite. The poor always listen. They don’t say that there is no money for iron pills,

or better food, or worm medicine. The idea of an operation is frightening and costs

so much that, if I had dared, I would have laughed. Who takes care of my children?

Recovery from an operation takes a long time. I have three children. When I left them

with “Granny” the last time I had a job, I came home to find the baby covered with

fly specks, and a diaper that had not been changed since I left. When the dried diaper

came off, bits of my baby’s flesh came with it. My other child was playing with a

sharp bit of broken glass, and my oldest was playing alone at the edge of a lake. I made

twenty-two dollars a week, and a good nursery school costs twenty dollars a week for

three children. I quit my job.

Poverty is dirt. You can say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house,

“Anybody can be clean.” Let me explain about housekeeping with no money. For

breakfast, I give my children grits with no oleo or cornbread without eggs and oleo.

This does not use up many dishes. What dishes there are, I wash in cold water and with

no soap. Even the cheapest soap has to be saved for the baby’s diapers. Look at my

hands, so cracked and red. Once I saved for two months to buy a jar of Vaseline for my

276 English: Grade 11

hands and the baby’s diaper rash. When I had saved enough, I went to buy it and the

price had gone up two cents. The baby and I suffered on. I have to decide every day if

I can bear to put my cracked sore hands into the cold water and strong soap. But you

ask, why not hot water? Fuel costs money. If you have a wood fire, it costs money.

If you burn electricity, it costs money. Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries. I

know you will be surprised when I tell you how young I am. I look so much older. My

back has been bent over the wash tubs every day for so long, I cannot remember when

I ever did anything else. Every night I wash every stitch my school age child has on

and just hope her clothes will be dry by morning.

Poverty is staying up all night on cold nights to watch the fire knowing one spark on

the newspaper covering the walls means your sleeping child dies in flames. In summer,

poverty is watching gnats and flies devour your baby’s tears when he cries. The screens

are torn and you pay so little rent you know they will never be fixed. Poverty means

insects in your food, in your nose, in your eyes, and crawling over you when you sleep.

Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won’t dry when it rains and soon you

are using newspapers. Poverty is seeing your children forever with runny noses. Paper

handkerchiefs cost money and all your rags you need for other things. Even more

costly are antihistamines. Poverty is cooking without food and cleaning without soap.

Poverty is asking for help. Have you ever had to ask for help, knowing your children

will suffer unless you get it? Think about asking for a loan from a relative, if this

is the only way you can imagine asking for help. I will tell you how it feels. You

find out where the office is that you are supposed to visit. You circle that block

four or five times. Thinking of your children, you go in. Everyone is very busy.

Finally, someone comes out and you tell her that you need help. That never is the

person you need to see. You go see another person, and after spilling the whole

shame of your poverty all over the desk between you, you find that this isn’t the right

office after all—you must repeat the whole process, and it never is any easier at the

next place.

You have asked for help, and after all it has a cost. You are again told to wait. You are

told why, but you don’t really hear because of the red cloud of shame and the rising

cloud of despair.

Poverty is remembering. It is remembering quitting school in junior high because

“nice” children had been so cruel about my clothes and my smell. The attendance

officer came. My mother told him I was pregnant. I wasn’t, but she thought that I could

English: Grade 11 277

get a job and help out. I had jobs off and on, but never long enough to learn anything.

Mostly I remember being married. I was so young then. I am still young. For a time,

we had all the things you have. There was a little house in another town, with hot water

and everything. Then my husband lost his job. There was unemployment insurance for

a while and what few jobs I could get. Soon, all our nice things were repossessed and

we moved back here. I was pregnant then. This house didn’t look so bad when we first

moved in. Every week it gets worse. Nothing is ever fixed. We now had no money.

There were a few odd jobs for my husband, but everything went for food then, as it

does now. I don’t know how we lived through three years and three babies, but we did.

I’ll tell you something, after the last baby I destroyed my marriage. It had been a good

one, but could you keep on bringing children in this dirt? Did you ever think how much

it costs for any kind of birth control? I knew my husband was leaving the day he left,

but there were no good-byes between us. I hope he has been able to climb out of this

mess somewhere. He never could hope with us to drag him down.

That’s when I asked for help. When I got it, you know how much it was? It was, and

is, seventy-eight dollars a month for the four of us; that is all I ever can get. Now you

know why there is no soap, no needles and thread, no hot water, no aspirin, no worm

medicine, no hand cream, no shampoo. None of these things forever and ever and ever.

So that you can see clearly, I pay twenty dollars a month rent, and most of the rest goes

for food. For grits and cornmeal, and rice and milk and beans. I try my best to use only

the minimum electricity. If I use more, there is that much less for food.

Poverty is looking into a black future. Your children won’t play with my boys. They

will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want. I can already see them behind

the bars of their prison instead of behind the bars of my poverty. Or they will turn to

the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved. And my daughter? At

best, there is for her a life like mine.

But you say to me, there are schools. Yes, there are schools. My children have no extra

books, no magazines, no extra pencils, or crayons, or paper and most important of

all, they do not have health. They have worms, they have infections, they have pinkeye

all summer. They do not sleep well on the floor, or with me in my one bed. They

do not suffer from hunger, my seventy-eight dollars keep us alive, but they do suffer

from malnutrition. Oh yes, I do remember what I was taught about health in school.

It doesn’t do much good. In some places there is a surplus commodities program. Not

here. The country said it cost too much. There is a school lunch program. But I have

two children who will already be damaged by the time they get to school.

278 English: Grade 11

But, you say to me, there are health clinics. Yes, there are health clinics and they are in

the towns. I live out here eight miles from town. I can walk that far (even if it is sixteen

miles both ways), but can my little children? My neighbour will take me when he goes;

but he expects to get paid, one way or another. I bet you know my neighbour. He is

that large man who spends his time at the gas station, the barbershop, and the corner

store complaining about the government spending money on the immoral mothers of

illegitimate children.

Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away. Poverty is a chisel

that chips on honour until honour is worn away. Some of you say that you would do

something in my situation, and maybe you would, for the first week or the first month,

but for year after year after year?

Even the poor can dream. A dream of a time when there is money. Money for the right

kinds of food, for worm medicine, for iron pills, for toothbrushes, for hand cream, for

a hammer and nails and a bit of screening, for a shovel, for a bit of paint, for some

sheeting, for needles and thread. Money to pay in money for a trip to town. And, oh,

money for hot water and money for soap. A dream of when asking for help does not

eat away the last bit of pride. When the office you visit is as nice as the offices of other

governmental agencies, when there are enough workers to help you quickly, when

workers do not quit in defeat and despair. When you have to tell your story to only one

person, and that person can send you for other help and you don’t have to prove your

poverty over and over and over again.

I have come out of my despair to tell you this. Remember I did not come from another

place or another time. Others like me are all around you. Look at us with an angry

heart, anger that will help you help me. Anger that will let you tell of me. The poor are

always silent. Can you be silent too?

Glossary

antihistamines (n.): a drug used to treat allergies

chronic (adj.): long-standing, long-term

diapers (n.): thick soft paper or cloth wrapped around a baby's bottom and between its

legs to absorb and retain urine

enslave (v.): make a slave

illegitimate (adj.): illegal, unlawful

immoral (adj.): not having morality

English: Grade 11 279

Understanding the text

Answer the following questions.

a. What is poverty according to Parker?

According to Parker Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt- and illness-stained mattress. 

Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves. Poverty is being tired. She has always been tired. They told me at the hospital when the last baby came that she had chronic anemia caused from poor diet, a bad case of worms. Poverty is dirt. You can say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house. Poverty is staying up all night on cold nights to watch the fire knowing one spark on the newspaper covering the walls means fearing the sleeping child will die in flames. Poverty means insects in your food, in your nose, in your eyes, and crawling over you when you sleep. Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won’t dry when it rains and soon you are using newspapers. Poverty is seeing the children forever with runny noses. Paper handkerchiefs cost money and all your rags you need for other things. Poverty is cooking without food and cleaning without soap. Poverty is asking for help. Poverty is remembering about school and education and husband. Poverty is looking into a black future. The children will be thieves or take drugs and alcohol. Poverty is an acid that drips on pride until all pride is worn away. 

b. How is poverty difficult for Parker’s children? List some specific examples.

Poverty is difficult for Parker’s children as given below:

1. Poverty is seeing the children forever with runny noses. Paper handkerchiefs cost money and all your rags you need for other things.

2. They will turn to other boys who steal to get what they want. They will be sent behind

the bars of their prison instead of behind the bars of my poverty. Or they will turn to

the freedom of alcohol or drugs, and find themselves enslaved. 

3. The daughter will have a life as bad as hers. 

4. The children will not have  extra books, no magazines, no extra pencils, or crayons, or paper and most important of all, they do not have health.

c. How does Parker try to obtain help, and what problems does she encounter?

Poverty tries to obtain help but she encounters problems. First to find the help she has to find right office.  After circling block to block for five times to find the right person for the help. That is not the person who needed to be seen. You have asked for help, and after all it has a cost. Even after doing that one has to wait to get help for long. 

d. Why are people’s opinions and prejudices her greatest obstacles?

People like her neighbor whose opinions and prejudices are her greatest obstacles because they complain about the government spending money on the immoral mothers of illegitimate children. It takes away her pride. 

e. How does Parker defend her inability to get help? How does she discount the

usual solutions society has for poverty (e.g., welfare, education, and health

clinics)?

Parker defends her inability to get help because it's difficult to get help from people. There are very few people who come forward to help. To meet that someone who can help takes lots of time to meet and she has to wait for the help even she meets one who can help. She discounts the usual solutions society has for poverty by saying the amount she receives from social welfare is only enough for food. And also the school lunch program can be the solution for poor children but by the time they go to school, they would already have ill health like the health clinic for poor lies 8 miles away, the distance she can travel but her children can't for the treatment. 

Reference to the context

a. Explain the following:

Poverty is looking into a black future.

Poor people have to live a restless life looking at the dark future of their children. Poverty breaks relationships. Parker had three children. She divorced her husband because he had lost his job and they couldn’t buy contraceptives to prevent unwanted birth. She had a job. Once she left the children under the care of their grandmother. She found her children under the pitiable condition when she returned home. Her youngest son was covered with fly specks and his diaper had not been changed since morning. Her other child was playing with broken glasses and the oldest one was playing alone at the edge of a lake. She did not have enough income to admit them at a nursery school. She made 20 dollars a week and a nursery school cost 20 dollars a week for three children. Therefore she quitted her job.

b. What does Parker mean by “The poor are always silent”?

Parker says the poor have to be always silent. Which means they can't react to anything. They can't solve their problem by talking to anyone. So when the doctor ask the poor to do the treatment they get frightened to hear the cost. To some extent they have understood poor people will remain unheard. If they had been listened then no one has live under poverty. 

c. What writing strategy does the author use at the beginning of most of the

paragraphs? Do you notice a recurring pattern? What is it?

The author uses definition strategy at the beginning of most of the

paragraphs. Yes, I notice a recurring pattern. Shas has used the same expressions to give importance to the meaning of poverty. By doing so the reader understands that poverty has layers of different meanings. A single instance is not enough to explain poverty. It is the expression, "poverty is..." It also emphasizes the subject of the essay 

d. How does Parker develop each paragraph? What details make each paragraph

memorable?

Parker develops each paragraph with the topic sentence and supporting statement with examples. The details with the definition of the word poverty make each paragraph memorial. 

e. In the final paragraph, how does the author use questions to involve the reader in

the issue of poverty?

Her questions are thought-provoking. She thinks poor people are helpless. So to solve their problem one who is not poor can do that by getting anger towards poor people. Because it's only them who can solve their problem by speaking about them. The poor people can't speak for themselves. They remain silent but those who are educated and not poor can't remain silent. Thus she ask others to solve the issue of poverty by not remaining silent.

Reference beyond the text

a. Define a social problem (homelessness, unemployment, racism) imitating

Parker’s style.

b. Using adjectives to highlight the futility of the situation, write a short definition

essay on Growing up in Poverty.