The speakers of the poems “a song in the front yard” and “Sadie and Maud,” seem to desire one thing: to live a full life. They are judged mainly by their family, as their ideas of what is a good life and a full life are at odds with each other.
In “a song in the front yard,” the speaker wants to live a little more wilder: to live in the hidden back streets, and to have fun. The speaker admits the moral implications, saying that she’d “like to be a bad woman.” Her mother, does not understand this desire, and “sneers” at the daughter. The mother takes a more traditional stance and admonishes “grow[ing] up to be a bad woman.” Overall, she represents tradition, something that the speaker snubs. For example, the speaker rejects the roses in the front yard. “A girl gets sick of a rose,” she says. In this case, roses represents a traditional and pleasant life, a life that the speaker is willing to go against. She sees more value in the rough and wild life.
The second poem, “Sadie and Maud” is less explicit. The two sisters live different lives: “Maud went to college. / Sadie stayed at home.” The majority of the poem is spent with Sadie. In the very first stanza, it is said that “Sadie scraped life,” as if trying to get everything she can from life. The second stanza confirms this, saying that “Sadie was one of the livingest chits / In all the land.” But in living this way, she becomes a single mother. This is something that her family (mother, father, and Maud) are ashamed of.
Compared to Sadie, Maud went to college. But the only lines she get are sparse. She is described as “a thin brown mouse.” This could imply that she is frail and timid, with not a lot of life in her. She also lives alone. There is not a lot of outright judgement in this stanza, but it is heavily implied that Maud did not live as good of a life as Sadie did. Sadie rebelled, and lived a good life. Maud played it safe, and did not have much to show for it.
Brooks approached these two poems very differently but managed to portray the same idea: that to live fully sometimes means living on the edges of society, where others will judge you for it.