interpretation of the poem "Bedecked" by Victoria Redel?

Question

Bedecked
by Victoria Redel

Tell me it’s wrong the scarlet nails my son sports or the toy
store rings he clusters four jewels to each finger.

He’s bedecked. I see the other mothers looking at the star
choker, the rhinestone strand he fastens over a sock.
Sometimes I help him find sparkle clip-ons when he says
sticker earrings look too fake.

Tell me I should teach him it’s wrong to love the glitter that a
boy’s only a boy who’d love a truck with a remote that revs,
battery slamming into corners or Hot Wheels loop-de-looping
off tracks into the tub.

Then tell me it’s fine - really - maybe even a good thing - a boy
who’s got some girl to him,
and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in
the park.

Tell me what you need to tell me but keep far away from my son
who still loves a beautiful thing not for what it means -
this way or that - but for the way facets set off prisms and
prisms spin up everywhere
and from his own jeweled body he’s cast rainbows - made every
shining true color.

Now try to tell me - man or woman - your heart was ever once
that brave.


What do you think this poem means? how would you interpret it?
-Thank you-

Answer 1

It's about accepting the differences in each other and thinking what makes us different and how much easier it is to fit the status quo. She sees her son as what he wishes to be, not what society tells him he should be; though she's unsure she should let him she loves that unbridled part of him:



Then tell me it’s fine - really - maybe even a good thing - a boy

who’s got some girl to him,

and I’m right for the days he wears a pink shirt on the seesaw in

the park.

Answer 2

This poem is very straightforward. You have this boy and he likes sparkly things and pink. Girl things to be precise. The mother is protective of him, though slightly concerned about his taste in apparel. The thing is though, the boy likes the sparkles and pink because they are pretty, not because they are girls things. He does not care about the meaning other people have assigned to them (example: pink is for girls and blue is for boys). The author is trying to draw attention to how people so often go with the crowd and by doing so miss out on something they truly enjoy, all because they couldn't get past what other people would think.



Step out and do your own thing and forget about what other people might think or say.

Answer 3

She seems confused about her son.

She wants assurance that it is alright for him to be this way. That it might be just a phase he is going through. That it is just his creative side shining through.

But, yet again, she wonders if there could be other reasons he is doing this.