Billy Collins holds a unique place in contemporary poetry, known for his accessible style, gentle humor, and profound insights into everyday life. His poem “The Lanyard” is a remarkable example of his craft, managing to be simultaneously hilarious and deeply moving. It’s a piece that resonates particularly strongly around Mother’s Day, offering a poignant reflection on the immeasurable gift of a mother’s love compared to the often inadequate ways a child attempts to reciprocate.
The poem gained wider recognition when it was included in the anthology Poems That Make Grown Men Cry, selected by film director J.J. Abrams, who noted its rare ability to grip him emotionally. It speaks to the heart of the mother-child relationship, capturing that universal feeling that nothing we offer can ever truly match the life and love a mother provides.
The Lanyard
The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.
No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenly—
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.
I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that’s what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.
She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.
Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.
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.
And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller gift—not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.
Analyzing the Heart of “The Lanyard” for Mother’s Day
The poem opens with a typically Collins-esque scene: the speaker idly wandering through his home, his mind adrift, until a mundane object—the word “lanyard” in a dictionary—triggers a powerful rush of memory. This sudden dive into the past, compared humorously to Proust’s famous madeleine moment, sets the stage for the central contrast of the poem. The memory takes him back to summer camp, a place of childhood freedom and simple crafts, where he made a “boxy / red and white lanyard” for his mother.
The speaker admits the inherent uselessness of the object – he had never seen anyone use a lanyard, nor did he know its purpose. Yet, with the innocent conviction of a child, he labored over this simple item, intending it as a gift. This leads to the core, repeated juxtaposition that gives the poem its emotional weight and gentle humor. The mother’s immense gifts—life, nourishment, care through illness, teaching the fundamental skills of walking and swimming, providing sustenance, clothing, and education—are placed side-by-side with the child’s offering: a lanyard.
The conversational, almost dialogic structure of these stanzas (“She gave me life… and I gave her a lanyard.”) highlights the vast disparity between the two sides of the equation. The mother’s contributions are fundamental, life-sustaining, and formative. The child’s contribution is a trivial trinket woven out of plastic strips, possibly born of boredom at camp. The repetition underscores the almost absurd inadequacy of the child’s offering when weighed against the mother’s boundless generosity. This dynamic resonates deeply when considering good poems for mothers day.
Collins masterfully avoids sentimentality through his understated tone and the almost comical nature of the “lanyard” as a repayment for life itself. Yet, the underlying emotion is profoundly serious. The poem builds towards a “rueful admission” in the final stanza. The speaker acknowledges the commonly held truth that a child can never repay their mother. However, the deeper, more personal truth he arrives at is the boy’s naive certainty, at the time, that this “useless, worthless thing” was actually “enough to make us even.” This is where the poem shifts from observation to deep emotional insight. It captures the child’s limited understanding of the world and the magnitude of love and sacrifice.
Painting depicting a mother embracing her child, symbolizing the bond between them
The power of “The Lanyard” for Mother’s Day lies in its honest depiction of this fundamental asymmetry in the mother-child relationship. It’s not about guilt, but about a recognition of the sheer scale of a mother’s giving and the humble, sometimes misguided, ways children express their nascent love and appreciation. It taps into the universal experience of trying, however clumsily, to offer something meaningful in return for the overwhelming gift of life and nurture. Many good short poems about life touch on similar themes of gifts and reciprocity, but Collins’ approach here is uniquely poignant and relatable.
In its gentle humor and quiet insight, “The Lanyard” serves as a perfect poem on Mother’s Day. It reminds us not only of the countless, invaluable contributions mothers make but also of the heartfelt, if sometimes clumsy, efforts children make to show their love. It’s a poem that allows us to smile at the memory of our own childhood efforts while feeling the deep, enduring weight of a mother’s unconditional love. It’s easily one of the best short poems ever that captures such a complex emotion with such simplicity.
The poem ultimately offers a moment of poignant reflection, acknowledging the gap between what is given and what can be returned, and finding beauty and truth in that very disparity. It’s a testament to the lasting impact of a mother’s love and the simple, memorable tokens that remain in our minds years later.