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. The writer presents the evidence of her daily struggle in poverty: From her underwear to living arrangements, and everything in between, Parker resides in poverty. In her essay, she says to listen to the story of what poverty is. Then she talks about the different aspects of poverty. Parker talks about the lack of health conditions she and her three children suffer from.

She decides to be a mother even though she has no ability to provide for them. She talks about the government only giving her a small amount of money per month. That is why she cannot afford nutritional foods and soap to clean her kids. She thinks that the outside world will not help, rather criticises her for not doing something.

She explains an unfortunate situation that forced her into a life not easy to live or deal with. To live with three children to care for, plus herself, she continued on with her life no matter what obstacles kept jumping in her path. Parker uses an angry tone, imagery, and repetition to inform readers the dehumanising effects of poverty. She explains poverty in an angry tone so readers can understand the true meaning of being poor.

Parker is capable of causing the reader to feel many emotions, mainly guilt. She makes the reader feel guilty for the possessions we may have. “You say in your clean clothes coming from your clean house, anybody can be clean”. This causes the reader to feel guilty for having the opportunity to be clean when we know that she does not have the same. Parker then goes on talking about how she has no hot water for herself and her kids. “Hot water is a luxury. I do not have luxuries”.

People do not think about hot water being a luxury, but Parker explains that having things like soap and hot water are something extravagant. Parker uses imagery in her essay to make the readers actually see what she is going through. She explains what her living situation is like.

“This is a smell of urine, sour milk, and spoiling food sometimes joined with the strong smell of long-cooked onions”. The smell of her home is overpowering and the reason is because she cannot wash the mattresses or bathe herself and her kids with soap. Her and her three kids live like this. She went through every moment taking care of herself and her children. She had no help, no husband, and no friends.

Physically she looks older than she actually is, her back is bent from washing clothes, and she has chronic anaemia because of her poor diet. Mentally she is just tired of being poor. She is tired of having no capability to provide for herself and her children. She is always scared that something bad will happen.

She constantly restates what is poverty. “Poverty is getting up every morning from a dirt- and illness-stained mattress.” “Poverty is living in a smell that never leaves”. Parker uses repetition to hammer an idea, image, or relationship so the reader can pay attention. In this case, she wants the reader to pay attention to the odour and the dirtiness of her living. “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 children die in flames.”

"Poverty is hoping it never rains because diapers won’t dry when it rains and soon you are using newspapers”. Here, Parker is explaining how she is scared that her children will be hurt if she does not keep one eye open and the inconvenience of rain that troubles her children. All of these phrases create a different image of poverty and each one is successful in evoking sympathy. Through her essay, Parker makes us realise how bad poverty is and she shows us that there is no hope for the poor without understanding. Parker gives outsiders a glimpse into what she goes through on a daily basis. 

REFERENCES :

Amirchiyan, T., & Hawkins, D. B. (2010, 12 6). Essay on Jo Goodwin Parker: What is Poverty? Retrieved from Bartleby Research: https://www.bartleby.com/essay/Jo-Goodwin-Parker-What-Is-Poverty-FKAMM23VC

Curriculum Development Centre. (2020). English Grade 11. Sanothimi, Bhaktapur: Government of Nepal, Curriculum Development Centre.

Jo Goodwin Parker: What is Poverty? (2016, 9 15). Retrieved from Study Moose: https://studymoose.com/jo-goodwin-parker-what-is-poverty-essay

Image Sources : 

https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/how-covid-19-impacts-fight-to-end-extreme-poverty/

https://borgenproject.org/poverty-affects-different-age-groups/