What is Poverty? By 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 personal narrative essay "What is Poverty?" is about
Parker's firsthand account of living in poverty, addressed directly to the
reader. Parker describes her story from childhood through maturity with her
hardships being overwhelming. She illustrates the meaning of poverty with
examples from her own life, using connotative language that conjures up several
terrible images of the hardships and obscene living conditions. With no
appropriate underwear on and the stench of decaying teeth nearby, the writer
portrays poverty as dirty, odorous, and unsanitary. Every morning, poverty
rises from a soiled and infected mattress. Diapers have long been strewn across
the sheets. Fatigue is synonymous with poverty. When it's cold outside, poverty
means staying up all night to keep an eye on the fire, knowing that if a single
spark ignites the newspaper that covers the walls, the sleeping child will
perish in flames. Poverty cries out for help. After all, recalling the past and
projecting into the future have costs. Pride is eroded by poverty like an acid
until it is completely gone. Poverty is like a chisel that removes honor piece
by piece until it is gone. At all costs, poverty must remain mute because of the deprivation of everything.