It's a poem if you say it is, but for me, it doesn't do what I like to 
see a poem do, which is engage with language.  It's its message, and 
it's an interesting message, but I like to see a poem engage me on more 
levels than that. And certainly, not everyone feels thios way.

Look at your second stanza. It's almost metrically regular -- three 
stresses per line, basically iambs with some substitutions -- two 
anapest s in the first line, a trochaic inversion in the second, and the 
third...well, the third is three trochees, whoch probably kills my 
"basically iambic" argument, but it's my argument and I'm sticking  to it.

Seriously, the second stanza does move toward metric regularity. What if 
you put the whole poem in meter? I'm not saying every poem should be in 
meter, but what if this one was? It would mean that as you wrote it, you 
would be thinking about the weight and music of the words as well as the 
psychological importance of the moment, and new things might happen.

The fourth stanza is pretty close to regular, the sixth is quite regular.

I like the last line of the poem very much. It does feel poetic to me.

Barry Alpert wrote:
> Sharon,
>
> I'd have no problem with designating your work "a poem", although I find it 
> a bit too prosaic for my taste.  The subject rhymes with some of 
> my "familial material", but at present I'm much less energized by those 
> matters and vastly more excited by Yves Klein (and the Nouveaux 
> Realistes).  More on him in a moment.
>
>
> Barry Alpert
>  
>
>
>  On Sun, 27 Jan 2008 12:25:12 +0200, kasper salonen <[log in to unmask]> 
> wrote:
>
>> not a poem, but a good snap I say.
>> an interesting whole here, a bit of tragedy & nonchalance.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 27/01/2008, sharon brogan <[log in to unmask]> asked," "Is this a poem?"
>
>
>
>>> telephone call with my mother
>>>
>>> she called last night
>>> after watching an oprah show
>>> about children of divorce
>>>
>>> she wanted to know what i felt
>>> fifty-three years ago
>>> when she left my father
>>>
>>> she said that she knew
>>> she'd never asked and never
>>> told me why
>>>
>>> she wanted exoneration
>>> and i granted it
>>> we all do the best we can
>>>
>>> and how much worse it would have been
>>> had she stayed with an angry
>>> drinking man
>>>
>>> she told me that when i was three
>>> and she sent me to stay
>>> with my grandparents
>>>
>>> i told them: i always know
>>> when daddy comes home drunk
>>> because he wakes me up
>>>
>>> and does any of this matter now
>>> into this new century
>>> that will close on us both?
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>>
>>> ~ SB  | http://www.sbpoet.com |  =^..^=
>>>
>

-- 
Tad Richards
http://www.opus40.org/tadrichards/
http://opusforty.blogspot.com/

The moral is this: in American verse,
The better you are, the pay is worse.
  --Corey Ford