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Psychoanalytic Perspectives
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Poems and other Works

D. W. Winnicott & Masud Khan
Published online: 14 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: D. W. Winnicott & Masud Khan (2008) Poems and other Works, Psychoanalytic
Perspectives, 5:2, 91-97, DOI: 10.1080/1551806X.2008.10473028
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1551806X.2008.10473028

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Psychoanalytic Perspectives, 5(2):91-98

POEMS AND OTHER WORKS

D. K Winnicott and Masud Khan

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A Childs Letter to a Mother

Young Donald Winnicott wrote this letter to his mother when he was away
at the Leys School in Cambridge in 1911 and it shows his need, even in his
early years, to enliven his depressed mother through play. Maybe Clare
Winnicott knew what a burden it really was for him to be in that role, for
we can see in this letter what a task he had as a child.
My dearest Mother,
On September 2nd all true Scouts think of their mothers, since that was
the birthday of Baden Powells mother when she was alive. And so when
you get this letter I shall be thinking of you in particular, and I only hope
you will get it in the morning.
But to please me very much I must trouble you to do me a little favour.
Before turning the page I want you to go up to my bedroom and in the
right-hand cupboard find a small parcel . . .Now, have you opened it? Well,
I hope you will like it. You can change it at Pophams if you dont. Only if
you do so, you must ask to see No. 1 who knows about it.

I have had a ripping holiday, and I cannot thank you enough for all you
have done and for your donation to the Scouts.
My home is a beautiful home and I only wish I could live up to it. However I will do my best and work hard and thats all I can do at present.
Give my love to the others; thank Dad for his game of billiards and V
and K for being so nice and silly so as to make me laugh. But, it being
Mothers Day, most love goes to you.
From your loving boy,
Donald
(Winnicott, C., 1989, p. 9)
91

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Poems and Other Works

93

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Three Poems
The Tree was written by Donald Winnicott at age 67 and is said to be about
Winnicotts mother.
When Winnicott wrote this poem in 1963 he sent it to his good friend
James Britton, Clare Winnicotts brother, and enclosed this note: Do you
mind seeing this that hurt coming out of me? I think it had some thorns
sticking out somehow. Its not happened to me before & I hope it doesnt
again (Phillips, 1988, p. 29). Phillips implies that an identification of Christ
on the cross refers to the absence of the way the mother holds the child
in her mind as well as her arms. It also seems to refer to the way children
attempt to deal with the mothers depressed or withdrawn mood. The poem
also suggests that the form of deprivation, where the child is compelled to
attempt to enliven an inaccessible mother, is at the cost of the childs spontaneous vitality
The tree of the title may refer to a special tree in the Winnicott family
garden, where Winnicott nestled to do his homework before being sent off
to boarding school. From this vantage point, we could speculate that is a
tree connected to maternal separation (Winnicott, 2003):

The Tree

D.H? Winnicott
Someone touched the hem of my garment
Someone, someone, someone

I had much virtue to give

I was the source of virtue
the grape of the vine of the wine
I could have loved a woman
Mary, Mary, Mary
There was not time for loving
I must be about my fathers business
There were publicans and sinners
The poor we had always with us
There were those sick with the palsy
and the blind and the maimed
and widows bereft and grieving
women wailing for their children

D.W. Winnicott and Masud Khan

94

fathers with prodigal sons

prostitutes drawing their own water
from deep wells in the hot sun

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Mother below is weeping

weeping
weeping
Thus I knew her
Once, stretched out on her lap
as now on a dead tree
I learned to make her smile
to stem her tears
to undo her guilt
to cure her inward death
To enliven her was my living
So she became wife, mother, home
The carpenter enjoyed his craft
Children came and loved and were loved
Suffer little children to come unto me

Now mother is weeping

She must weep
The sins of the whole world weigh less than this
womans heaviness
0 Glastonbury

Must I bring even these thorns to flower?

Even this dead tree to leaf?
How, in agony
Held by dead wood that has no need of me
by the cruelty of the nails hatred
of gravitys inexorable and heartless pull
I thirst

Poems and Other Works

No garment now
No hem to be touched
It is I who need virtue
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?

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It is I who die
I who die
I die
I
(pp. 289-291)

95

D.W. Winnicott and Masud Khan

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96

Masud Kahn was Winnicotts student, analysand and editor. Below is a poem
Khan wrote in 1963 about his own mother -the fourth wife of his father, who
married her at age 76. She was a courtesan who already had an illegitimate
child, and was allegedly in her teens when they married. She was perceived
by Khan as a simple woman prone to anxious chatter who could not keep
up with him (Hopkins, 2006, p. 8). When he was seven years old, his mother
went to visit her family in a village several hundred miles away, promising to
return in 30 days. When a telegram arrived on the twenty-ninth day, announcing that she would be delayed, Masuds father raged and swore vengeance,
terrorizing the entire household. When Masuds mother finally returned,
Masud refused to drive to the railway station to meet her. When she arrived
at the house, he refused to greet her. You have dishonoured my father and
let me down, he told her (Hopkins, 2006, p. 7). She slapped his face, for the
first time ever, and he said that he never spoke to her again.

I Cannot Hear
Masud Khan

I cannot hear
I cannot hear you,
mother.
Not your wailing or chantings,
or the whispering of maids around you.
The dead leaves are crumpled
and stuffed in my ears.
I heard the shriek,
knew it was you,
killed it, mother.
My mad inconsolable mother.
I killed your voice insisting in my ears.
I cannot hear.
What I touch and see is mine,
mother,
and I cannot share.
I cannot hear.
Mother.
Mother.
Mother.
(Khan, 2005, p. 7)

Poems and Other Works

97

At the end of his life, Winnicott wrote this poem. Can it be about mortality?
Or about the dream world, and the unconscious? Does it speak to the
innerlouter world of intermediate space? Or about tapping into a source of
endless creativity?

Sleep

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D. W Winnicott

Let down your tap root

to the centre of your soul
Suck up the sap
from the infinite source
of your unconscious

And
Be evergreen.
(Winnicott, C., 1989, p. 17)

REFERENCES
Hopkins, L. (2006). False SeF The Life of Masud Khan. New York: Other Press.
Khan, M. (2005). I Cannot Hear. In R. Willoughby, Masud Khan: The Myth and the
Reality (p. 7). London: Free Association Books. (Original work published 1963)
Phillips, A. (1988). Winnicott. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.
Winnicott, C. (1989). DWW: A Reflection. In C. Winnicott, R. Shephard, &
M. Davis (Eds.), Psycho-Analytic Explorations (pp. 1-1 8). Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Winnicott, D.W. (2003). The Tree. In R.F. Rodman, Winnicott: Life and Work
(pp. 289-291). Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing. (Original work written
1963)