A Woman Mourned By Daughters: An Analysis “A Woman Mourned by Daughters”, by Adrienne Rich, is a very descriptive poem in which two women are speaking to their dead mother. There are several parts to this poem starting from the when the mother dies, and moving gradually backward to when the daughters were young girls. It begins with the daughters sitting in their mothers kitchen, “mourning” over their mothers death, only they aren't upset or crying (Lines 1-3). They are “spent” (drained and tired) from all the pressure their mother put on them, before and after she died. The next section (Lines 4-10) is a description of their de