Review

         Middle Age is a well known poem by Kamala Das. Kamala Das is an internationally known Indian writer of English poetry. She is probably

better known by this name, though now she is known as Kamala Surayya. She is a Vibrant presence in malayalam fiction as madhavikutty.

         The poem " Middle Age " is about the modern attitude of young men and women towards their middle - aged mothers. Middle Age is a period of neglect and solitude. That is the time When children like pupae,burst out of the cocoon of motherly affection. They start finding fault with the mother.They become harsh critics. This is the stage when the mother needs affection most. but she  realizes that at this stage,the mother is growing out of fashion, and her children are no more her own.She has fond memories of the childhood plays.When she is alone she touches the children's books and other things, and weeps. To her, her children are everything.They too need her,but only for their daily chores.Now the children turn away from the mother.The realisation of middle age has to sink into the mind. The mother has to realise that she is no longer young and she has to wake up from the dream world.

         ' Middle Age ' is a confessional poem, as it is intensely personal in treatment and universal in theme. Confessional poetry is a struggle to relate private experience with the outer world. The poem gives us the psychological equivalent of a mother's slate.

                                                                              ~ Unnimaya K.C.