This is a famous poem, written in 1971, as a protest against the Vietnamese War (1954-1975. This was originally a civil war between communist North and capitalist South Vietnam; the south received support from western countries, notably the USA. In 1973 President Nixon withdrew the US forces, in 1975 the armies of North Vietnam were victorious, and the country was reunited the following year. More recently, Vietnam has adopted democratic government and opened itself up to visitors from the west.) Denise Levertov protested in public against the war, and spent time in jail. In the poem, inspired by the violence of the US bombing campaign, she imagines a future in which the people have been destroyed and there is no record or memory of their culture. (In the light of the Nazis' genocide of European Jews, this was not an unreasonable fear.) In fact, the people and culture of Vietnam are thriving today but attempted genocide (now we call it “ethnic cleansing”) has devastated Cambodia, Ruanda and Burundi and the former Yugoslavia.
The poem is in the form of a series of questions, as a future visitor might pose them to a cultural historian. The questions are mostly straightforward, but the answers are quite subversive. Together they create a sympathetic portrait of a gentle, simple peasant people, living a dignified if humble life amid the paddy fields. This contrasts with the violent effects of war, as children are killed, bones are charred and people scream as bombs smash the paddy fields. The final lines of the poem show how utterly the people have been forgotten - the report of their singing (of which there is no record) is hopelessly vague - it resembled, supposedly, “the flight of moths in moonlight” - but no one knows, since it is silent now. Happily the reader today can readily find examples of Vietnamese song, and we can satisfy ourselves that it is nothing like the flight of moths in moonlight.
The poem shows the Vietnamese as rather childlike, innocent and vulnerable - a way of seeing them that seemed to be confirmed by some events in the war, lie the destruction of the forests with napalm, and by the notorious photographic image of a naked burning child running from her devastated village. But the people of Vietnam eventually proved more resilient than in this well-meaning but rather patronising western view. On the other hand, it was protests like that in the poem that changed US public opinion, so that President Nixon withdrew their forces from combat - which helped the Northern Communist forces win the war, and reunite Vietnam by force.
This poem became very well-known when it was first published - but the poet's fears for Vietnam have not come true (though things that are perhaps just as bad have happened in Cambodia, Ruanda-Burundi and the former Yugoslavia). Does it still have anything to say to us or has history made it irrelevant?
What do you think of the question and answer format in the poem?
Do you think that Vietnamese people would like to be depicted as gentle peasants who know only “rice and bamboo”? You may have some Vietnamese friends - so you could ask them. Is it ever a good idea for people from one culture to try to describe another, or is there a risk of stereotyping and patronizing?
How might singing be like “the flight of moths in moonlight”? Does this mean anything or is it pretentious and misleading? You might check this by finding out what traditional Vietnamese music is really like.
This poem is not about individuals but about big political events. What do you think of the way the poet presents history and politics here?
Showing posts with label Other Cultures Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Other Cultures Poetry. Show all posts
Monday, 17 May 2010
Vultures
This is one of the most challenging poems in the anthology. The vultures of the title are real birds of prey but (like William Blake's Tyger) more important, perhaps, for what they represent - people of a certain kind. Chinua Achebe is a Nigerian writer, but has a traditional English-speaking liberal education: the poem is written in a highly literate manner with a close eye for detail.
The poem introduces us to the vultures and their unpleasant diet; in spite of this, they appear to care for each other. From this Achebe goes on to note how even the worst of human beings show some touches of humanity - the concentration camp commandant, having spent the day burning human corpses, buys chocolate for his “tender offspring” (child or children). This leads to an ambiguous conclusion:
on the one hand, Achebe tells us to “praise bounteous providence” that even the worst of creatures has a little goodness, “a tiny glow-worm tenderness”;
on the other hand, he concludes in despair, it is the little bit of “kindred love” (love of one's own kind or relations) which permits the “perpetuity of evil” (allows it to survive, because the evil person can think himself to be not completely depraved).
We are reminded, perhaps, by the words about the “Commandant at Belsen”, that Adolf Hitler was said to love children and animals.
The poem is in the form of free verse, in short lines which are not end-stopped and have no pattern of stress or metre. Achebe moves from
images of things which are actually present,
to the imagined scene of the commandant picking up chocolate for his children,
to the final section of the poem in which appears the conventional metaphor of the “glow-worm tenderness” in the “icy caverns of a cruel heart”.
In studying this poem, you should spend a lot of time in making sure you understand all of the unfamiliar vocabulary. Look out, also, for familiar words which are used in surprising ways, because of their context. For example, we read of the commandant “going home...with fumes of human roast clinging rebelliously to his hairy nostrils” - it is as if he wants to get rid of the smell (put it out of nose and mind) but the smell refuses to go away, rebelling against his authority: something he cannot command.
As you think or write about the first part of the poem, you should try to describe in your own words the different things on which the vultures feed, while looking for the evidence of the birds' love for each other. Like William Blake's Tyger, the vulture is a creature about which we will have ideas before we read; because it feasts on corpses, it has come to symbolize anyone or anything that benefits by another's suffering. (The vultures here are shown far less sympathetically, for example, than the scorpion in Nissim Ezekiel's poem.)
Is this poem really about vultures at all or does the poet use them only to make comments on some kinds of people?
How does the poet try to make the reader feel disgust towards the vultures? Is this fair?
The ending of this poem is highly ambiguous - the poet recommends both “praise” for “providence” and then “despair” (because the little bit of goodness in otherwise evil things allows them to keep going, in “perpetuity”). Which of these conclusions do you think the poet feels more strongly, if either?
Chinua Achebe refers to Belsen, the Nazi death camp - do you think this is a powerful way of suggesting evil, or might readers now and in the future not know what Belsen is or what happened there? (Some younger readers may know of it mainly because Anne Frank died there, at the age of 15.)
The poem introduces us to the vultures and their unpleasant diet; in spite of this, they appear to care for each other. From this Achebe goes on to note how even the worst of human beings show some touches of humanity - the concentration camp commandant, having spent the day burning human corpses, buys chocolate for his “tender offspring” (child or children). This leads to an ambiguous conclusion:
on the one hand, Achebe tells us to “praise bounteous providence” that even the worst of creatures has a little goodness, “a tiny glow-worm tenderness”;
on the other hand, he concludes in despair, it is the little bit of “kindred love” (love of one's own kind or relations) which permits the “perpetuity of evil” (allows it to survive, because the evil person can think himself to be not completely depraved).
We are reminded, perhaps, by the words about the “Commandant at Belsen”, that Adolf Hitler was said to love children and animals.
The poem is in the form of free verse, in short lines which are not end-stopped and have no pattern of stress or metre. Achebe moves from
images of things which are actually present,
to the imagined scene of the commandant picking up chocolate for his children,
to the final section of the poem in which appears the conventional metaphor of the “glow-worm tenderness” in the “icy caverns of a cruel heart”.
In studying this poem, you should spend a lot of time in making sure you understand all of the unfamiliar vocabulary. Look out, also, for familiar words which are used in surprising ways, because of their context. For example, we read of the commandant “going home...with fumes of human roast clinging rebelliously to his hairy nostrils” - it is as if he wants to get rid of the smell (put it out of nose and mind) but the smell refuses to go away, rebelling against his authority: something he cannot command.
As you think or write about the first part of the poem, you should try to describe in your own words the different things on which the vultures feed, while looking for the evidence of the birds' love for each other. Like William Blake's Tyger, the vulture is a creature about which we will have ideas before we read; because it feasts on corpses, it has come to symbolize anyone or anything that benefits by another's suffering. (The vultures here are shown far less sympathetically, for example, than the scorpion in Nissim Ezekiel's poem.)
Is this poem really about vultures at all or does the poet use them only to make comments on some kinds of people?
How does the poet try to make the reader feel disgust towards the vultures? Is this fair?
The ending of this poem is highly ambiguous - the poet recommends both “praise” for “providence” and then “despair” (because the little bit of goodness in otherwise evil things allows them to keep going, in “perpetuity”). Which of these conclusions do you think the poet feels more strongly, if either?
Chinua Achebe refers to Belsen, the Nazi death camp - do you think this is a powerful way of suggesting evil, or might readers now and in the future not know what Belsen is or what happened there? (Some younger readers may know of it mainly because Anne Frank died there, at the age of 15.)
Night of the Scorpion
In this poem Nissim Ezekiel recalls “the night” his “mother was stung by a scorpion”. The poem is not really about the scorpion or its sting, but contrasts the reactions of family, neighbours and his father, with the mother's dignity and courage. The scorpion (sympathetically) is shown as sheltering from ten hours of rain, but so fearful of people that it “risk(s) the rain again” after stinging the poet's mother.
What follows is an account of various superstitious reactions:
the peasants' efforts to “paralyse the Evil One” (the devil, who is identified with the scorpion);
the peasants' belief that the creature's movements make the poison move in his victim's blood;
their hope that this suffering may be a cleansing from some sin in the past (“your previous birth”) or still to come (“your next birth”).
The poison is even seen as making the poet's mother better through her suffering: “May the poison purify your flesh/of desire and the spirit of ambition/they said”. The poet's father normally does not share such superstitions (he is “sceptic, rationalist” - a doubter of superstition and a believer in scientific reason). But he is now worse than the other peasants, as he tries “every curse and blessing” as well as every possible antidote of which he can think. The “holy man” performs “rites” (religious ritual actions) but the only effective relief comes with time: “After twenty hours it lost its sting”.
The conclusion of the poem is its most effective part: where everyone else has been concerned for the mother, who has been in too much pain to talk (she “twisted...groaning on a mat”) she thinks of her children, and thanks God the scorpion has spared them (the sting might be fatal to a smaller person; certainly a child would be less able to bear the pain).
Ezekiel's poetic technique is quite simple here. The most obvious point to make is the contrast between the very long first section, detailing the frantic responses of everyone but the mother, and the simple, brief, understated account of her selfless courage in the second section. The lines are of irregular length and unrhymed but there is a loose pattern of two stresses in each line; the lines are not end-stopped but run on (this is sometimes known as enjambement).
Instead of metaphor or simile the images are of what was literally present (the candles and the lanterns and the shadows on the walls). The poem is in the form of a short narrative. One final interesting feature to note is the repeated use of reported (indirect) speech - we are told what people said, but not necessarily in their exact words, and never enclosed in speech marks. The poem may surprise us in the insight it gives into another culture: compare Ezekiel's account with what would happen if your mother were stung by a scorpion (or, if this seems a bit unlikely, bitten by an adder, say).
Some comments about Nissim Ezekiel that you might find helpful in relation to Night of the Scorpion are these: he writes in a free style and colloquial manner (like ordinary speech); he makes direct statements and employs few images.
The title of the poem seems more fitting almost to an old horror film - do you think it is a suitable title for the poem that follows?
How do the people try to make sense of the scorpion's attack, or even see it as a good thing?
Are scorpions really evil? Does the poet share the peasants' view of a “diabolic” animal?
How does the attack bring out different qualities in the father and the mother?
What does the poem teach us about the beliefs of people in the poet's home culture?
In what way is this a poem rather than a short story broken into lines?
How does the poet make use of what people said, to bring the poem to life?
What follows is an account of various superstitious reactions:
the peasants' efforts to “paralyse the Evil One” (the devil, who is identified with the scorpion);
the peasants' belief that the creature's movements make the poison move in his victim's blood;
their hope that this suffering may be a cleansing from some sin in the past (“your previous birth”) or still to come (“your next birth”).
The poison is even seen as making the poet's mother better through her suffering: “May the poison purify your flesh/of desire and the spirit of ambition/they said”. The poet's father normally does not share such superstitions (he is “sceptic, rationalist” - a doubter of superstition and a believer in scientific reason). But he is now worse than the other peasants, as he tries “every curse and blessing” as well as every possible antidote of which he can think. The “holy man” performs “rites” (religious ritual actions) but the only effective relief comes with time: “After twenty hours it lost its sting”.
The conclusion of the poem is its most effective part: where everyone else has been concerned for the mother, who has been in too much pain to talk (she “twisted...groaning on a mat”) she thinks of her children, and thanks God the scorpion has spared them (the sting might be fatal to a smaller person; certainly a child would be less able to bear the pain).
Ezekiel's poetic technique is quite simple here. The most obvious point to make is the contrast between the very long first section, detailing the frantic responses of everyone but the mother, and the simple, brief, understated account of her selfless courage in the second section. The lines are of irregular length and unrhymed but there is a loose pattern of two stresses in each line; the lines are not end-stopped but run on (this is sometimes known as enjambement).
Instead of metaphor or simile the images are of what was literally present (the candles and the lanterns and the shadows on the walls). The poem is in the form of a short narrative. One final interesting feature to note is the repeated use of reported (indirect) speech - we are told what people said, but not necessarily in their exact words, and never enclosed in speech marks. The poem may surprise us in the insight it gives into another culture: compare Ezekiel's account with what would happen if your mother were stung by a scorpion (or, if this seems a bit unlikely, bitten by an adder, say).
Some comments about Nissim Ezekiel that you might find helpful in relation to Night of the Scorpion are these: he writes in a free style and colloquial manner (like ordinary speech); he makes direct statements and employs few images.
The title of the poem seems more fitting almost to an old horror film - do you think it is a suitable title for the poem that follows?
How do the people try to make sense of the scorpion's attack, or even see it as a good thing?
Are scorpions really evil? Does the poet share the peasants' view of a “diabolic” animal?
How does the attack bring out different qualities in the father and the mother?
What does the poem teach us about the beliefs of people in the poet's home culture?
In what way is this a poem rather than a short story broken into lines?
How does the poet make use of what people said, to bring the poem to life?
Two Scavengers in a Truck, Two Beautiful People in a Mercedes
The poem's title alerts us to the simple contrast that is its subject. “Beautiful people” is perhaps written with a mild sense of irony - as this phrase was originally coined by the hippie movement in 1967 (maybe earlier) to refer to the “flower children” who shared the counter-culture ideals of peace and love. The couple in the poem are not beautiful people in this sense but wealthy and elegant.
The poem is deceptively simple - in places it is written as if in bright primary colours, so we read of the “yellow garbage truck” and the “red plastic blazers”, we get exact details of time and place, and we see the precise position of the four people: all waiting at a stoplight and the garbage collectors looking down (literally but not metaphorically) into the “elegant open Mercedes” and the matching couple in it. The details of their dress and hair could be directions for a film-maker.
Ferlinghetti contrasts the people in various ways. The wealthy couple are on their way to the man's place of work, while the “scavengers” are coming home, having worked through the early hours. The couple in the Mercedes are clean and cool; the scavengers are dirty. But while one scavenger is old, hunched and with grey hair, the other is about the same age as the Mercedes driver and, like him, has long hair and sunglasses. The older man is depicted as the opposite of beautiful - he is compared both to a gargoyle (an ugly grotesque caricature used to decorate mediaeval churches, and ward off evil spirits) and to Quasimodo (the name means “almost human”) the main character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The poem moves to an ambiguous conclusion. The two scavengers see the young couple, not as real people, but as characters in a “TV ad/in which everything is always possible” - as if, that is, with determination and effort, the scavengers could change their own lifestyle for the better. But the adjective “odorless” suggests that this is a fantasy - and their smelly truck is the reality.
The poem also considers the fundamental American belief that “all men are created equal” - and the red light is democratic, because it stops everyone. It holds them together “as if anything at all were possible/between them”. They are separated by a “small gulf” and the gulf is “in the high seas of democracy” - which suggests that, with courage and effort, anyone can cross it. But the poet started this statement with “as if” - and we do not know if this is an illusion or a real possibility.
The form of the poem is striking on the page - Ferlinghetti begins a new line with a capital letter, but splits most lines to mark pauses, while he omits punctuation other than hyphens in compound-words, full stops in abbreviations and occasional ampersands (the & symbol).
The poem challenges the reader - are we like the cool couple or the scavengers? And which is better to be? Of which couple does the poet seem to approve more? TV ads may be “odorless” but without garbage collectors, we would be overwhelmed by unpleasant smells - especially in the heat of San Francisco. The garbage truck and the Mercedes in a way become symbols for public service and for private enterprise.
How does this poem show the gap between rich and poor?
Does the poet really think “everything is always possible”, or is this an illusion?
Why does the poet call the couple in the Mercedes “beautiful people”? How does he use this phrase in a different sense from what it originally meant? Does the poet approve more of the scavengers or the beautiful people?
What do you think of how the poem looks on the page? Does this help you as you read it?
Perhaps a modern society needs both architects and street-cleaners. But is it right that we should pay them so unequally? Which would you miss the most if they stopped working?
The poem is deceptively simple - in places it is written as if in bright primary colours, so we read of the “yellow garbage truck” and the “red plastic blazers”, we get exact details of time and place, and we see the precise position of the four people: all waiting at a stoplight and the garbage collectors looking down (literally but not metaphorically) into the “elegant open Mercedes” and the matching couple in it. The details of their dress and hair could be directions for a film-maker.
Ferlinghetti contrasts the people in various ways. The wealthy couple are on their way to the man's place of work, while the “scavengers” are coming home, having worked through the early hours. The couple in the Mercedes are clean and cool; the scavengers are dirty. But while one scavenger is old, hunched and with grey hair, the other is about the same age as the Mercedes driver and, like him, has long hair and sunglasses. The older man is depicted as the opposite of beautiful - he is compared both to a gargoyle (an ugly grotesque caricature used to decorate mediaeval churches, and ward off evil spirits) and to Quasimodo (the name means “almost human”) the main character in Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
The poem moves to an ambiguous conclusion. The two scavengers see the young couple, not as real people, but as characters in a “TV ad/in which everything is always possible” - as if, that is, with determination and effort, the scavengers could change their own lifestyle for the better. But the adjective “odorless” suggests that this is a fantasy - and their smelly truck is the reality.
The poem also considers the fundamental American belief that “all men are created equal” - and the red light is democratic, because it stops everyone. It holds them together “as if anything at all were possible/between them”. They are separated by a “small gulf” and the gulf is “in the high seas of democracy” - which suggests that, with courage and effort, anyone can cross it. But the poet started this statement with “as if” - and we do not know if this is an illusion or a real possibility.
The form of the poem is striking on the page - Ferlinghetti begins a new line with a capital letter, but splits most lines to mark pauses, while he omits punctuation other than hyphens in compound-words, full stops in abbreviations and occasional ampersands (the & symbol).
The poem challenges the reader - are we like the cool couple or the scavengers? And which is better to be? Of which couple does the poet seem to approve more? TV ads may be “odorless” but without garbage collectors, we would be overwhelmed by unpleasant smells - especially in the heat of San Francisco. The garbage truck and the Mercedes in a way become symbols for public service and for private enterprise.
How does this poem show the gap between rich and poor?
Does the poet really think “everything is always possible”, or is this an illusion?
Why does the poet call the couple in the Mercedes “beautiful people”? How does he use this phrase in a different sense from what it originally meant? Does the poet approve more of the scavengers or the beautiful people?
What do you think of how the poem looks on the page? Does this help you as you read it?
Perhaps a modern society needs both architects and street-cleaners. But is it right that we should pay them so unequally? Which would you miss the most if they stopped working?
Blessing
This poem is about water: in a hot country, where the supply is inadequate, the poet sees water as a gift from a god. When a pipe bursts, the flood which follows is like a miracle, but the “blessing” is ambiguous - it is such accidents which at other times cause the supply to be so little.
The opening lines of the poem compare human skin to a seedpod, drying out till it cracks. Why? Because there is “never enough water”. Ms. Dharker asks the reader to imagine it dripping slowly into a cup. When the “municipal pipe” (the main pipe supplying a town) bursts, it is seen as unexpected good luck (a “sudden rush of fortune”), and everyone rushes to help themselves. But the end of the poem reminds us of the sun, which causes skin to crack “like a pod” - today's blessing is tomorrow's drought. The poet celebrates the joyous sense with which the people, especially the children, come to life when there is, for once, more than “enough water”.
The poem has a single central metaphor - the giving of water as a “blessing” from a “kindly god”. The religious metaphor is repeated, as the bursting of the pipe becomes a “rush of fortune”, and the people who come to claim the water are described as a “congregation” (people gathering for worship).
The water is a source of other metaphors - fortune is seen as a “rush” (like water rushing out of the burst pipe), and the sound of the flow is matched by that of the people who seek it - their tongues are a “roar”, like the gushing water. Most tellingly of all, water is likened to “silver” which “crashes to the ground”. In India (where Ms. Dharker lives), in Pakistan (from where she comes) and in other Asian countries, it is common for wealthy people to throw silver coins to the ground, for the poor to pick up. The water from the burst pipe is like this - a short-lived “blessing for a few”. But there is no regular supply of “silver”. And finally, the light from the sun is seen as “liquid” - yet the sun aggravates the problems of drought.
The poem is written in unrhymed lines, mostly brief, some of which run on, while others are end-stopped, creating an effect of natural speech. The poet writes lists for the people (“man woman/child”) and the vessels they bring (“. ..with pots/brass, copper, aluminium,/plastic buckets”). The poem appeals to the reader's senses, with references to the dripping noise of water (as if the hearer is waiting for there to be enough to drink) and the flashing sunlight.
We have a clear sense of the writer's world - in her culture water is valued, as life depends upon the supply: in the west, we take it for granted. This is a culture in which belief in “a kindly god” is seen as natural, but the poet does not express this in terms of any established religion (note the lower-case “g” on “god”). She suggests a vague and general religious belief, or superstition. The poem ends with a picture of children - “naked” and “screaming”. The sense of their beauty (“highlights polished to perfection”) is balanced by the idea of their fragility, as the “blessing sings/over their small bones”.
How does this poem present water as the source of life?
“There is never enough water” - do readers in the west take water too much for granted?
Why does Imtiaz Dharker call the poem Blessing?
Why might the poet end by mentioning the “small bones” of the children?
The opening lines of the poem compare human skin to a seedpod, drying out till it cracks. Why? Because there is “never enough water”. Ms. Dharker asks the reader to imagine it dripping slowly into a cup. When the “municipal pipe” (the main pipe supplying a town) bursts, it is seen as unexpected good luck (a “sudden rush of fortune”), and everyone rushes to help themselves. But the end of the poem reminds us of the sun, which causes skin to crack “like a pod” - today's blessing is tomorrow's drought. The poet celebrates the joyous sense with which the people, especially the children, come to life when there is, for once, more than “enough water”.
The poem has a single central metaphor - the giving of water as a “blessing” from a “kindly god”. The religious metaphor is repeated, as the bursting of the pipe becomes a “rush of fortune”, and the people who come to claim the water are described as a “congregation” (people gathering for worship).
The water is a source of other metaphors - fortune is seen as a “rush” (like water rushing out of the burst pipe), and the sound of the flow is matched by that of the people who seek it - their tongues are a “roar”, like the gushing water. Most tellingly of all, water is likened to “silver” which “crashes to the ground”. In India (where Ms. Dharker lives), in Pakistan (from where she comes) and in other Asian countries, it is common for wealthy people to throw silver coins to the ground, for the poor to pick up. The water from the burst pipe is like this - a short-lived “blessing for a few”. But there is no regular supply of “silver”. And finally, the light from the sun is seen as “liquid” - yet the sun aggravates the problems of drought.
The poem is written in unrhymed lines, mostly brief, some of which run on, while others are end-stopped, creating an effect of natural speech. The poet writes lists for the people (“man woman/child”) and the vessels they bring (“. ..with pots/brass, copper, aluminium,/plastic buckets”). The poem appeals to the reader's senses, with references to the dripping noise of water (as if the hearer is waiting for there to be enough to drink) and the flashing sunlight.
We have a clear sense of the writer's world - in her culture water is valued, as life depends upon the supply: in the west, we take it for granted. This is a culture in which belief in “a kindly god” is seen as natural, but the poet does not express this in terms of any established religion (note the lower-case “g” on “god”). She suggests a vague and general religious belief, or superstition. The poem ends with a picture of children - “naked” and “screaming”. The sense of their beauty (“highlights polished to perfection”) is balanced by the idea of their fragility, as the “blessing sings/over their small bones”.
How does this poem present water as the source of life?
“There is never enough water” - do readers in the west take water too much for granted?
Why does Imtiaz Dharker call the poem Blessing?
Why might the poet end by mentioning the “small bones” of the children?
Island Man
The subtitle really explains this simple poem - it tells of a man from the Caribbean, who lives in London but always thinks of his home.
The poem opens with daybreak, as the island man seems to hear the sound of surf - and perhaps to imagine he sees it, since we are told the colour. This is followed by simple images:
the fishermen pushing their boat out,
the sun climbing in the sky,
the island, emerald green.
The island man always returns to the island, in his mind, but in thinking of it he must “always” come “back” literally to his immediate surroundings - hearing the traffic on London's North Circular Road.
Grace Nichols ends the poem with the image of coming up out of the sea - but the reality is the bed, and the waves are only the folds of a “crumpled pillow”. The last line of the poem is presented as the harsh reality.
Many Afro-Caribbeans in Britain live a split existence. They may yearn for the warmth and simple pleasures of the islands they think of as home, yet they find themselves, with friends and family, in a cold northern climate. This poem neatly captures this division - between a fantasy of the simple life and the working daily reality. But perhaps it is not really a serious choice - if one were to stay on the island, then one would bring one's problems there, too. In fact, this man is like most other British people - he does not relish work, but faces up to it.
After reading the whole poem, one sees that it is ambiguous - the island is both in the Caribbean and Great Britain.
Grace Nichols also challenges us to think about where home really lies. Is it
the place we dream about,
the place where we, our friends and family live, or
the place where we do our work?
The poem opens with daybreak, as the island man seems to hear the sound of surf - and perhaps to imagine he sees it, since we are told the colour. This is followed by simple images:
the fishermen pushing their boat out,
the sun climbing in the sky,
the island, emerald green.
The island man always returns to the island, in his mind, but in thinking of it he must “always” come “back” literally to his immediate surroundings - hearing the traffic on London's North Circular Road.
Grace Nichols ends the poem with the image of coming up out of the sea - but the reality is the bed, and the waves are only the folds of a “crumpled pillow”. The last line of the poem is presented as the harsh reality.
Many Afro-Caribbeans in Britain live a split existence. They may yearn for the warmth and simple pleasures of the islands they think of as home, yet they find themselves, with friends and family, in a cold northern climate. This poem neatly captures this division - between a fantasy of the simple life and the working daily reality. But perhaps it is not really a serious choice - if one were to stay on the island, then one would bring one's problems there, too. In fact, this man is like most other British people - he does not relish work, but faces up to it.
After reading the whole poem, one sees that it is ambiguous - the island is both in the Caribbean and Great Britain.
Grace Nichols also challenges us to think about where home really lies. Is it
the place we dream about,
the place where we, our friends and family live, or
the place where we do our work?
Nothing's Changed
This poem depicts a society where rich and poor are divided. In the apartheid era of racial segregation in South Africa, where the poem is set, laws, enforced by the police, kept apart black and white people. The poet looks at attempts to change this system, and shows how they are ineffective, making no real difference. Jackie Fielding writes:
“I had always assumed that the poem was written post-apartheid and reflected the bitterness that knowing “one's place” in society is so deeply ingrained that the I-persona can't bring himself to accept his new-found freedom under Mandela. I also find it interesting that the poet is not South African and not black.”
“District Six” is the name of a poor area of Cape Town (one of South Africa's two capital cities; the other is Pretoria). This area was bulldozed as a slum in 1966, but never properly rebuilt. Although there is no sign there, the poet can feel that this is where he is: “...my feet know/and my hands.”
Similarly the “up-market” inn (“brash with glass” and the bright sign ,“flaring like a flag”, which shows its name) is meant for white customers only. There is no sign to show this (as there would have been under apartheid) but black and coloured people, being poor, will not be allowed past the “guard at the gatepost”. The “whites only inn” is elegant, with linen tablecloths and a “single rose” on each table. It is contrasted with the fast-food “working man's cafe” which sells the local snack (“bunny chows”). There is no tablecloth, just a plastic top, and there is nowhere to wash one's hands after eating: “wipe your fingers on your jeans”. In the third stanza the sense of contrast is most clear: the smart inn “squats” amid “grass and weeds”.
Perhaps the most important image in the poem is that of the “glass” which shuts out the speaker in the poem. It is a symbol of the divisions of colour, and class - often the same thing in South Africa. As he backs away from it at the end of the poem, Afrika sees himself as a “boy again”, who has left the imprint of his “small, mean mouth” on the glass. He wants “a stone, a bomb” to break the glass - he may wish literally to break the window of this inn, but this is clearly meant in a symbolic sense. He wants to break down the system, which separates white and black, rich and poor, in South Africa.
The title of the poem suggests not just that things have not changed, but a disappointment that an expected change has not happened. The poem uses the technique of contrast to explore the theme of inequality. It has a clear structure of eight-line stanzas. The lines are short, of varying length, but usually with two stressed syllables. The poet assumes that the reader knows South Africa, referring to places, plants and local food. The poem is obviously about the unfairness of a country where “Nothing's changed”. But this protest could also apply to other countries where those in power resist progress and deny justice to the common people.
What does the poet think about change in his home country?
How does the poem contrast the rich and the poor in South Africa?
Why does the poet write about two places where people buy food?
Comment on the image of the plate-glass window to show how poor people are shut out of things in South Africa. What does the poet want to do to change this?
“I had always assumed that the poem was written post-apartheid and reflected the bitterness that knowing “one's place” in society is so deeply ingrained that the I-persona can't bring himself to accept his new-found freedom under Mandela. I also find it interesting that the poet is not South African and not black.”
“District Six” is the name of a poor area of Cape Town (one of South Africa's two capital cities; the other is Pretoria). This area was bulldozed as a slum in 1966, but never properly rebuilt. Although there is no sign there, the poet can feel that this is where he is: “...my feet know/and my hands.”
Similarly the “up-market” inn (“brash with glass” and the bright sign ,“flaring like a flag”, which shows its name) is meant for white customers only. There is no sign to show this (as there would have been under apartheid) but black and coloured people, being poor, will not be allowed past the “guard at the gatepost”. The “whites only inn” is elegant, with linen tablecloths and a “single rose” on each table. It is contrasted with the fast-food “working man's cafe” which sells the local snack (“bunny chows”). There is no tablecloth, just a plastic top, and there is nowhere to wash one's hands after eating: “wipe your fingers on your jeans”. In the third stanza the sense of contrast is most clear: the smart inn “squats” amid “grass and weeds”.
Perhaps the most important image in the poem is that of the “glass” which shuts out the speaker in the poem. It is a symbol of the divisions of colour, and class - often the same thing in South Africa. As he backs away from it at the end of the poem, Afrika sees himself as a “boy again”, who has left the imprint of his “small, mean mouth” on the glass. He wants “a stone, a bomb” to break the glass - he may wish literally to break the window of this inn, but this is clearly meant in a symbolic sense. He wants to break down the system, which separates white and black, rich and poor, in South Africa.
The title of the poem suggests not just that things have not changed, but a disappointment that an expected change has not happened. The poem uses the technique of contrast to explore the theme of inequality. It has a clear structure of eight-line stanzas. The lines are short, of varying length, but usually with two stressed syllables. The poet assumes that the reader knows South Africa, referring to places, plants and local food. The poem is obviously about the unfairness of a country where “Nothing's changed”. But this protest could also apply to other countries where those in power resist progress and deny justice to the common people.
What does the poet think about change in his home country?
How does the poem contrast the rich and the poor in South Africa?
Why does the poet write about two places where people buy food?
Comment on the image of the plate-glass window to show how poor people are shut out of things in South Africa. What does the poet want to do to change this?
Limbo
This poem tells the story of slavery in a rhyming, rhythmic dance. It is ambitious and complex. There are two narratives running in parallel:
the actions of the dance, and
the history of a people which is being enacted.
Going down and under the limbo stick is likened to the slaves' going down into the hold of the ship, which carries them into slavery. In Roman Catholic tradition, limbo is a place to which the souls of people go, if they are not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell, between which limbo lies; it has come to mean any unpleasant place, or a state (of mind or body) from which it is difficult to escape. The story of slavery told in the poem is very easy to follow, yet full of vivid detail and lively action.
The poem has a very strong beat, suggesting the dance it describes: where the word limbo appears as a complete line, it should be spoken slowly, the first syllable extended and both syllables stressed: Lím-bó. While the italics give the refrain (or chorus) which reminds us of the dance, the rest of the poem tells the story enacted in the dance: these lines are beautifully rhythmic, and almost every syllable is stressed, until the very last line, where the rhythm is broken, suggesting the completion of the dance, and the end of the narrative.
This poem is suited to dramatic performance - there is the dancing under the limbo pole (difficult for most Europeans) and the acting out of the voyage into slavery. The poem can be chanted or sung, with a rhythmic accompaniment to bring out the drama in it (percussion, generally, is appropriate but drums, specifically, are ideal: in fact, the text refers to the “drummer” and the “music”).
What do you find interesting in
the way the poem appears on the page
sound effects in the poem
repetition in the poem
the way the limbo dance tells the story of slavery
Is this a serious or comic poem? Is it optimistic or pessimistic?
the actions of the dance, and
the history of a people which is being enacted.
Going down and under the limbo stick is likened to the slaves' going down into the hold of the ship, which carries them into slavery. In Roman Catholic tradition, limbo is a place to which the souls of people go, if they are not good enough for heaven or bad enough for hell, between which limbo lies; it has come to mean any unpleasant place, or a state (of mind or body) from which it is difficult to escape. The story of slavery told in the poem is very easy to follow, yet full of vivid detail and lively action.
The poem has a very strong beat, suggesting the dance it describes: where the word limbo appears as a complete line, it should be spoken slowly, the first syllable extended and both syllables stressed: Lím-bó. While the italics give the refrain (or chorus) which reminds us of the dance, the rest of the poem tells the story enacted in the dance: these lines are beautifully rhythmic, and almost every syllable is stressed, until the very last line, where the rhythm is broken, suggesting the completion of the dance, and the end of the narrative.
This poem is suited to dramatic performance - there is the dancing under the limbo pole (difficult for most Europeans) and the acting out of the voyage into slavery. The poem can be chanted or sung, with a rhythmic accompaniment to bring out the drama in it (percussion, generally, is appropriate but drums, specifically, are ideal: in fact, the text refers to the “drummer” and the “music”).
What do you find interesting in
the way the poem appears on the page
sound effects in the poem
repetition in the poem
the way the limbo dance tells the story of slavery
Is this a serious or comic poem? Is it optimistic or pessimistic?
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Thoughts on Search for My Tongue by Josh L, Josh P, Jack R, Anthony, Nemanjza, Sulemann, Vin and Adil
F - The poem has 3 stanzas, and in the opening stanza it gives you the idea that you can speak 2 languages but after a while one "rots and dies in your mouth." The middle stanza is like a dream. The final stanza is the poet basically reuniting with their old language and the language is coming back to them.
The gujarati is there as this is the language she dreams in, but in normal life she doesn't. This shows it is the unknown language which blossoms back to her. As a reader we don't necessarily understand this section.
The gujarati could be seen like the tongue in the middle of the poem, and the two english sections like the head / jaw.
L / I - The poet talks about "the" mother tongue rather than my in line 37. This is describing the language as a thing, as if it isn't her language anymore. She has lost the connection to her mother and her culture. The first section directs you to the second, telling you how it feels (using natural imagery) to get the mother tongue back. This keeps resurfacing, as in lines 36 - 38. She contradicts herself here as she suggests that this mother tongue can't be forgotten, no matter how hard you try.
R /T - The other language is used because it allows both English and Gujarati speakers to understand and experience the poem, without it, the poem would be empty and just appeal to one group. It could be said that the tone of this poem is mournful because of the poet's loss of tongue: "I ask you, what would you do / if you had two tongues in your mouth." She could also be sad that she has lost this heritage.
S - The poet feels strongly about the loss of her tongue because she uses negative, strong words like "spit, rot die." She addresses the reader as you in the poem, to bring you in. There is a confused message as some non-English speakers want to forget their culture to move on, but others see it as really important to preserve it.
The gujarati is there as this is the language she dreams in, but in normal life she doesn't. This shows it is the unknown language which blossoms back to her. As a reader we don't necessarily understand this section.
The gujarati could be seen like the tongue in the middle of the poem, and the two english sections like the head / jaw.
L / I - The poet talks about "the" mother tongue rather than my in line 37. This is describing the language as a thing, as if it isn't her language anymore. She has lost the connection to her mother and her culture. The first section directs you to the second, telling you how it feels (using natural imagery) to get the mother tongue back. This keeps resurfacing, as in lines 36 - 38. She contradicts herself here as she suggests that this mother tongue can't be forgotten, no matter how hard you try.
R /T - The other language is used because it allows both English and Gujarati speakers to understand and experience the poem, without it, the poem would be empty and just appeal to one group. It could be said that the tone of this poem is mournful because of the poet's loss of tongue: "I ask you, what would you do / if you had two tongues in your mouth." She could also be sad that she has lost this heritage.
S - The poet feels strongly about the loss of her tongue because she uses negative, strong words like "spit, rot die." She addresses the reader as you in the poem, to bring you in. There is a confused message as some non-English speakers want to forget their culture to move on, but others see it as really important to preserve it.
This Room
F – The poem is in 4 stanzas with a deliberate use of enjambment at the end to show how the narrator’s hands are outside clapping. This could also be said to represent the break up of the room in the poem. The lines are different lengths again to show the break out of this room.
L / I – The central image is that of the room breaking up, the poet uses personification to show that it is adapting and changing. It is ironic that the bed is “lifting out of its nightmares.” Dharker also uses onomatopoeia to enliven the poem and demonstrate noise and movement. The use of spices also hints at “other culture” and a slightly magical and uplifting feel to the poem.
R – Lines 11, 12 & 13 all rhyme, placed right in the centre of the poem for effect.
T/ S – This is a optimistic poem about what happens when we are freed from constraints. We could say it’s the constraint of a culture, or self imposed.
L / I – The central image is that of the room breaking up, the poet uses personification to show that it is adapting and changing. It is ironic that the bed is “lifting out of its nightmares.” Dharker also uses onomatopoeia to enliven the poem and demonstrate noise and movement. The use of spices also hints at “other culture” and a slightly magical and uplifting feel to the poem.
R – Lines 11, 12 & 13 all rhyme, placed right in the centre of the poem for effect.
T/ S – This is a optimistic poem about what happens when we are freed from constraints. We could say it’s the constraint of a culture, or self imposed.
Not My Business
F – The poet uses a chorus to show what the narrator is really thinking / worried about – food. The last stanza doesn’t have a chorus because the narrator is being taken by the government
L – Personification is used a lot to show how dangerous the environment is
I – Lots of natural imagery, clay – to show a basic culture
R – Rhythm is created through the repetitive chorus
T – It’s an attack on what’s happening with human rights in the narrator’s country, so it’s a sad poem, with the narrator accepting these terrible things
Extended info: The poet is a champion for Human rights and was imprisoned by the police for speaking out against his government. The yam is part of an extended metaphor, representing food and the narrator’s only happiness in this country
L – Personification is used a lot to show how dangerous the environment is
I – Lots of natural imagery, clay – to show a basic culture
R – Rhythm is created through the repetitive chorus
T – It’s an attack on what’s happening with human rights in the narrator’s country, so it’s a sad poem, with the narrator accepting these terrible things
Extended info: The poet is a champion for Human rights and was imprisoned by the police for speaking out against his government. The yam is part of an extended metaphor, representing food and the narrator’s only happiness in this country
Sunday, 15 March 2009
Grace Nichols writes about Hurricane Hits England
The poem, Hurricane Hits England, came about as a result of an actual hurricane or great storm, as some people liked to call it, that did hit England back in 1987. Millions of trees came down across England, especially on the South coast where I live. I remember walking around the parks the day after the hurricane and feeling very moved by the sight of all those uprooted trees. They seemed like beached whales to me, huge murdered creatures.
Because I’d never associated hurricanes with England (a regular Caribbean phenomenon) the manifestation of one in England took on a deep significance for me. It was as if some invisible but potent connection had taken place between the two landscapes. As if the voices of the old gods from Africa and the Caribbean were in the winds of the hurricane as it raged around Sussex.
The gods mentioned in the poem are all associated with storm-weather. Huracan, for example, is the Carib god of Hurricane, and the Caribbean gets its name from the native Carib Indians. Shango is the Yoruba god of thunder and lightning; Oya, the Yoruba goddess of the winds represents sweeping change; Hattie, is the name of a hurricane that caused great damage and loss of life in the Caribbean and central America in 1961.
Of course you don’t know how a poem is going to turn out until you’ve written it. You might have a rhythmical notion in mind and images such as ‘whales’ or ‘crusted roots’ but in the actual act of writing, a lot of different things are happening; sub-conscious connections are being made; metaphors formed such as - the howling ship of the wind. The poem seems to have a mind of its own and also becomes a process of discovery or surprise for the poet.
Now that I’ve written Hurricane Hits England, I can see for example that it has an incantatory trance-like quality about it, as if the woman seems possessed by the winds and by the gods she calls on. Although the opening stanza of the poem is in the third person -
took a hurricane to bring her closer to the landscape
- in the rest of the poem she speaks in the first person –
come to break the frozen lake in me
- as if the hurricane has broken down all barriers between her and the English landscape.
In some mysterious way, it seems as if the old gods have not deserted her completely, connecting her both to the Caribbean and to England which is now her home. Indeed to the wider planet as she asserts –
the earth is the earth is the earth.
Because I’d never associated hurricanes with England (a regular Caribbean phenomenon) the manifestation of one in England took on a deep significance for me. It was as if some invisible but potent connection had taken place between the two landscapes. As if the voices of the old gods from Africa and the Caribbean were in the winds of the hurricane as it raged around Sussex.
The gods mentioned in the poem are all associated with storm-weather. Huracan, for example, is the Carib god of Hurricane, and the Caribbean gets its name from the native Carib Indians. Shango is the Yoruba god of thunder and lightning; Oya, the Yoruba goddess of the winds represents sweeping change; Hattie, is the name of a hurricane that caused great damage and loss of life in the Caribbean and central America in 1961.
Of course you don’t know how a poem is going to turn out until you’ve written it. You might have a rhythmical notion in mind and images such as ‘whales’ or ‘crusted roots’ but in the actual act of writing, a lot of different things are happening; sub-conscious connections are being made; metaphors formed such as - the howling ship of the wind. The poem seems to have a mind of its own and also becomes a process of discovery or surprise for the poet.
Now that I’ve written Hurricane Hits England, I can see for example that it has an incantatory trance-like quality about it, as if the woman seems possessed by the winds and by the gods she calls on. Although the opening stanza of the poem is in the third person -
took a hurricane to bring her closer to the landscape
- in the rest of the poem she speaks in the first person –
come to break the frozen lake in me
- as if the hurricane has broken down all barriers between her and the English landscape.
In some mysterious way, it seems as if the old gods have not deserted her completely, connecting her both to the Caribbean and to England which is now her home. Indeed to the wider planet as she asserts –
the earth is the earth is the earth.
Imtiaz Dharker - Blessing
I was working on a project, filming for Unicef in Dharavi, a huge colony of migrants in Mumbai, India. These migrants come from villages all over India, hoping to make a better life in the city. The city is unable or unwilling to cope with their needs, but they make the most of whatever little they have. Working with the people who lived there, especially the children, I often felt I saw more goodness and human kindness in the slum than I had found in temples, mosques and churches.
One day in May, one of the hottest, driest months, the mains water pipe burst. It was a moment of pure joy for the people in the slum, because it gave them access to water that was normally rationed or controlled. The water was like an unexpected gift.
What I try to do in the poem is suggest first of all how dry it is, using hard sounds and short factual sentences like, ‘The skin cracks like a pod’. The people living in the slum can only ‘imagine the drip of (water)’ as if it were ‘the voice of a kindly god.’ The god here is deliberately written with a small ‘g’ because the kindly god could be from any religion. People in need don’t ask where kindness comes from.
‘The municipal pipe bursts’. I use the word ‘municipal’ to signal the bureaucracy that rations water to migrants. In contrast to this, when the pipe bursts, they are all united by the blessing of water, as if the slum has become a holy place. The imagined ‘small splash echo in a tin mug’ becomes a rush of fortune. The people rushing out of the huts become ‘a congregation’.
There is another layer of imagery, ‘silver crashes to the ground’ because the water arriving is like currency to them, and also because that is how water looks in the sunlight.
There are different income levels even in a slum, suggested by ‘pots, brass, copper, aluminium, plastic buckets, frantic hands’ but here they come together democratically, united by their urgency.
In Indian villages there is often a caste distinction where some people are not allowed to use the same well as others because they are supposedly ‘lower caste’. In the city these distinctions can be forgotten, especially in a joyful moment like this.
Most of all, the blessing is for the children. The water turns to ‘liquid sun’, the light catches the sharp angles of their bodies, ‘their highlights polished to perfection’. The sound changes through the poem from hard to liquid to suggest the rush of water. The lines become longer and more breathless, then slow down at the end, almost as if a piece of film has gone into slow-motion to let the children play and scream for joy in the water a little longer.
At the end I wanted to suggest the tenderness of the ‘kindly god’ towards the children, ‘the blessing sings’, but there is also the awareness of how fragile these human beings are, with ‘their small bones’. The poem describes a happy uplifting moment, but there are some indications that this ‘blessing’ is temporary.
One day in May, one of the hottest, driest months, the mains water pipe burst. It was a moment of pure joy for the people in the slum, because it gave them access to water that was normally rationed or controlled. The water was like an unexpected gift.
What I try to do in the poem is suggest first of all how dry it is, using hard sounds and short factual sentences like, ‘The skin cracks like a pod’. The people living in the slum can only ‘imagine the drip of (water)’ as if it were ‘the voice of a kindly god.’ The god here is deliberately written with a small ‘g’ because the kindly god could be from any religion. People in need don’t ask where kindness comes from.
‘The municipal pipe bursts’. I use the word ‘municipal’ to signal the bureaucracy that rations water to migrants. In contrast to this, when the pipe bursts, they are all united by the blessing of water, as if the slum has become a holy place. The imagined ‘small splash echo in a tin mug’ becomes a rush of fortune. The people rushing out of the huts become ‘a congregation’.
There is another layer of imagery, ‘silver crashes to the ground’ because the water arriving is like currency to them, and also because that is how water looks in the sunlight.
There are different income levels even in a slum, suggested by ‘pots, brass, copper, aluminium, plastic buckets, frantic hands’ but here they come together democratically, united by their urgency.
In Indian villages there is often a caste distinction where some people are not allowed to use the same well as others because they are supposedly ‘lower caste’. In the city these distinctions can be forgotten, especially in a joyful moment like this.
Most of all, the blessing is for the children. The water turns to ‘liquid sun’, the light catches the sharp angles of their bodies, ‘their highlights polished to perfection’. The sound changes through the poem from hard to liquid to suggest the rush of water. The lines become longer and more breathless, then slow down at the end, almost as if a piece of film has gone into slow-motion to let the children play and scream for joy in the water a little longer.
At the end I wanted to suggest the tenderness of the ‘kindly god’ towards the children, ‘the blessing sings’, but there is also the awareness of how fragile these human beings are, with ‘their small bones’. The poem describes a happy uplifting moment, but there are some indications that this ‘blessing’ is temporary.
Imtiaz Dharker talks about This Room
In the poem ‘This room’ I wanted to suggest first of all that some kind of constriction is suddenly falling away. The walls of the room could mean different things to different people, and I hope when you read the poem you will find something in it that you can relate to your own life. Very often people try to trap us inside the box of a word, a label, a definition or an expectation. The box could even be self-imposed, our own limited idea of ourselves, the structures we build up around ourselves to keep ourselves ‘safe’ – nationality, religion, social barriers that keep others out.
The poem is about a moment when the structure falls away. The room is personified. It breaks out of itself, out of something suffocating. The image of ‘cracking through its own walls’ could suggest an egg and something about to be born into the light. The lines are short and broken, the sounds sharp.
Instead of falling, the everyday objects in the room take flight to unknown possibilities. ‘No-one is looking for the door’ because doors have become irrelevant. There is no need for one conventional exit when so many openings have appeared.
Perhaps I was working towards the idea that a person or a whole culture actually becomes stronger by opening up to the outside instead of closing inward.
The poem ends with a feeling of amused dislocation and a final moment of celebration in the last lines
‘In all this excitement, I’m wondering where
I’ve left my feet, and why
my hands are outside, clapping.’
(Just an extra note: I started writing this poem when a ceiling in my house in Bombay actually fell down. I should have felt terrible about it but I didn’t. Afterwards I gave away all the things I owned in the room and that gave me a great feeling of freedom).
You could also see this as a poem about writing a poem, when the writer steps away from an experience and looks at it from the outside, from an odd angle. This is the moment of celebration.
As often happens at one of the Poetry Live! days, a student added something else to the poem. She said the words ‘this room’ could apply to the room of the title and also to the ‘room’, the space, at the end of the poem.
That’s an example of how important you are as the reader and how a poem can grow in your reading of it.
The poem is about a moment when the structure falls away. The room is personified. It breaks out of itself, out of something suffocating. The image of ‘cracking through its own walls’ could suggest an egg and something about to be born into the light. The lines are short and broken, the sounds sharp.
Instead of falling, the everyday objects in the room take flight to unknown possibilities. ‘No-one is looking for the door’ because doors have become irrelevant. There is no need for one conventional exit when so many openings have appeared.
Perhaps I was working towards the idea that a person or a whole culture actually becomes stronger by opening up to the outside instead of closing inward.
The poem ends with a feeling of amused dislocation and a final moment of celebration in the last lines
‘In all this excitement, I’m wondering where
I’ve left my feet, and why
my hands are outside, clapping.’
(Just an extra note: I started writing this poem when a ceiling in my house in Bombay actually fell down. I should have felt terrible about it but I didn’t. Afterwards I gave away all the things I owned in the room and that gave me a great feeling of freedom).
You could also see this as a poem about writing a poem, when the writer steps away from an experience and looks at it from the outside, from an odd angle. This is the moment of celebration.
As often happens at one of the Poetry Live! days, a student added something else to the poem. She said the words ‘this room’ could apply to the room of the title and also to the ‘room’, the space, at the end of the poem.
That’s an example of how important you are as the reader and how a poem can grow in your reading of it.
Monday, 9 February 2009
Moniza Alvi: Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan
This poem can be compared usefully with the extracts from Search for My Tongue and from Unrelated Incidents, as well as with Half-Caste - all of which look at ideas of race and identity. Where Sujatta Bhatt, Tom Leonard and John Agard find this in language, Moniza Alvi associates it with material things. The poem is written in the first person, and is obviously autobiographical - the speaking voice here is really that of the poet.
Moniza Alvi contrasts the exotic garments and furnishings sent to her by her aunts with what she saw around her in her school, and with the things they asked for in return. Moniza Alvi also shows a paradox, as she admired the presents, but felt they were too exquisite for her, and lacked street credibility. Finally, the presents form a link to an alternative way of life (remote in place and time) which Ms. Alvi does not much approve: her aunts “screened from male visitors” and the “beggars” and “sweeper-girls” in 1950s Lahore.
The bright colours of the salwar kameez suggest the familiar notion of exotic clothes worn by Asian women, but the glass bangle which snaps and draws blood is almost a symbol of how her tradition harms the poet - it is not practical for the active life of a young woman in the west.
In a striking simile the writer suggests that the clothes showed her own lack of beauty: “I could never be as lovely/as those clothes”. The bright colours suggest the clothes are burning: “I was aflame/I couldn't rise up out of its fire”, a powerful metaphor for the discomfort felt by the poet, who “longed/for denim and corduroy”, plainer but comfortable and inconspicuous. Also she notes that where her Pakistani Aunt Jamila can “rise up out of its fire” - that is, “look lovely” in the bright clothes - she (the poet) felt unable to do so, because she was “half-English”. This may be meant literally (she has an English grandmother) or metaphorically, because she is educated in England. This sense of being between two cultures is shown when the “schoolfriend” asks to see Moniza Alvi's “weekend clothes” and is not impressed. The schoolfriend's reaction also suggests that she has little idea of what Moniza - as a young Pakistani woman - is, and is not, allowed to do at weekends, despite living in Britain.
The idea of living in two cultures is seen in the voyage, from Pakistan to England, which the poet made as a child and which she dimly recalls. This is often a symbol of moving from one kind of life to another.
• How well does this poem present the idea of living in (or between) two cultures? Do British Asians suffer from a loss of identity or get the best of both worlds?
• How does the poet use metaphors of clothes and jewellery to explain differences in culture?
• This poem brings together the salwar kameez and Marks & Spencer cardigans - what is the effect of this on the reader? In the 21st century can we say that one of these is any more British than the other?
• How does Moniza Alvi make use of colour and light in the poem?
• How far does our identity come from the things we own - presents and possessions? How far does it come from the way we have to live?
• What does Moniza Alvi think of the way of life she has left behind in Lahore - both that of her relations (well-off but confined to their house and “screened from male visitors”) and that of the poor beggar and sweeper girls?
• How does the poem's last line suggest the idea that Moniza Alvi did not belong in Pakistan?
From Universal Teacher
Moniza Alvi contrasts the exotic garments and furnishings sent to her by her aunts with what she saw around her in her school, and with the things they asked for in return. Moniza Alvi also shows a paradox, as she admired the presents, but felt they were too exquisite for her, and lacked street credibility. Finally, the presents form a link to an alternative way of life (remote in place and time) which Ms. Alvi does not much approve: her aunts “screened from male visitors” and the “beggars” and “sweeper-girls” in 1950s Lahore.
The bright colours of the salwar kameez suggest the familiar notion of exotic clothes worn by Asian women, but the glass bangle which snaps and draws blood is almost a symbol of how her tradition harms the poet - it is not practical for the active life of a young woman in the west.
In a striking simile the writer suggests that the clothes showed her own lack of beauty: “I could never be as lovely/as those clothes”. The bright colours suggest the clothes are burning: “I was aflame/I couldn't rise up out of its fire”, a powerful metaphor for the discomfort felt by the poet, who “longed/for denim and corduroy”, plainer but comfortable and inconspicuous. Also she notes that where her Pakistani Aunt Jamila can “rise up out of its fire” - that is, “look lovely” in the bright clothes - she (the poet) felt unable to do so, because she was “half-English”. This may be meant literally (she has an English grandmother) or metaphorically, because she is educated in England. This sense of being between two cultures is shown when the “schoolfriend” asks to see Moniza Alvi's “weekend clothes” and is not impressed. The schoolfriend's reaction also suggests that she has little idea of what Moniza - as a young Pakistani woman - is, and is not, allowed to do at weekends, despite living in Britain.
The idea of living in two cultures is seen in the voyage, from Pakistan to England, which the poet made as a child and which she dimly recalls. This is often a symbol of moving from one kind of life to another.
• How well does this poem present the idea of living in (or between) two cultures? Do British Asians suffer from a loss of identity or get the best of both worlds?
• How does the poet use metaphors of clothes and jewellery to explain differences in culture?
• This poem brings together the salwar kameez and Marks & Spencer cardigans - what is the effect of this on the reader? In the 21st century can we say that one of these is any more British than the other?
• How does Moniza Alvi make use of colour and light in the poem?
• How far does our identity come from the things we own - presents and possessions? How far does it come from the way we have to live?
• What does Moniza Alvi think of the way of life she has left behind in Lahore - both that of her relations (well-off but confined to their house and “screened from male visitors”) and that of the poor beggar and sweeper girls?
• How does the poem's last line suggest the idea that Moniza Alvi did not belong in Pakistan?
From Universal Teacher
Imtiaz Dharker: This Room
This is a quite puzzling poem, if we try to find an explicit and exact interpretation - but its general meaning is clear enough: Imtiaz Dharker sees rooms and furniture as possibly limiting or imprisoning one, but when change comes, it as if the room “is breaking out of itself”. She presents this rather literally, with a bizarre or surreal vision of room, bed and chairs breaking out of the house and rising up - the chairs “crashing through clouds”. The crockery, meanwhile, crashes together noisily “in celebration”. And why is no one “looking for the door”? Presumably, because there are now so many different ways of leaving the room, without using the conventional route.
One's sense of self is also confused - we say sometimes that we are all over the place, and Ms. Dharker depicts this literally, as well - she cannot find her feet (a common metaphor for gaining a sense of purpose or certainty) and realizes that her hands are not even in the same room - and have taken on a life of their own, applauding from somewhere else.
We do not know the cause of this joyful explosion, but it seems to be bound up with personal happiness and fulfilment - it might be romantic love, but it could be other things: maternity, a new job, artistic achievement, almost anything that is genuinely and profoundly life-changing.
The central idea in this poem is like that in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar of “a tide...that taken at its flood leads on to greatness” - that is, that opportunities come our way, and we need to recognize them and react in the right way, “when the...furniture of our lives/stirs” and “the improbable arrives”.
The poem works very much like an animated film - the excited “pots and pans” suggest the episode in Disney's Fantasia of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. It is a succession of vivid and exuberant images, full of joy and excitement. (Even if one does not enjoy the poem, the reader might like to know what made the poet feel like this - and perhaps give it a try.)
In the poem our homes and possessions symbolize our lives and ambitions in a limiting sense, while change and new opportunities are likened to space, light and “empty air”, where there is an opportunity to move and grow. Like Walcott's Love After Love it is about change and personal growth - but at an earlier point, or perhaps at repeated points in one's life.
• What do you think the poet means by imagining a room breaking out of itself?
• How does the poet suggest ideas of change and opportunity?
• This is a very happy poem - how does Imtiaz Dharker suggest her joy in it?
• Does the poem give us any clues as to why this upheaval is going on, or is the cause unimportant? What do you think might have caused it?
• What is the effect of the images in the poem - of rooms, furniture and crockery bursting into life?
- From Universal Teacher
One's sense of self is also confused - we say sometimes that we are all over the place, and Ms. Dharker depicts this literally, as well - she cannot find her feet (a common metaphor for gaining a sense of purpose or certainty) and realizes that her hands are not even in the same room - and have taken on a life of their own, applauding from somewhere else.
We do not know the cause of this joyful explosion, but it seems to be bound up with personal happiness and fulfilment - it might be romantic love, but it could be other things: maternity, a new job, artistic achievement, almost anything that is genuinely and profoundly life-changing.
The central idea in this poem is like that in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar of “a tide...that taken at its flood leads on to greatness” - that is, that opportunities come our way, and we need to recognize them and react in the right way, “when the...furniture of our lives/stirs” and “the improbable arrives”.
The poem works very much like an animated film - the excited “pots and pans” suggest the episode in Disney's Fantasia of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. It is a succession of vivid and exuberant images, full of joy and excitement. (Even if one does not enjoy the poem, the reader might like to know what made the poet feel like this - and perhaps give it a try.)
In the poem our homes and possessions symbolize our lives and ambitions in a limiting sense, while change and new opportunities are likened to space, light and “empty air”, where there is an opportunity to move and grow. Like Walcott's Love After Love it is about change and personal growth - but at an earlier point, or perhaps at repeated points in one's life.
• What do you think the poet means by imagining a room breaking out of itself?
• How does the poet suggest ideas of change and opportunity?
• This is a very happy poem - how does Imtiaz Dharker suggest her joy in it?
• Does the poem give us any clues as to why this upheaval is going on, or is the cause unimportant? What do you think might have caused it?
• What is the effect of the images in the poem - of rooms, furniture and crockery bursting into life?
- From Universal Teacher
Sujata Bhatt: from Search for My Tongue
This poem (or rather extract from a long poem) explores a familiar ambiguity in English - “tongue” refers both to the physical organ we use for speech, and the language we speak with it. (Saying “tongue” for “speech” is an example of metonymy). In the poem Sujata Bhatt writes about the “tongue” in both ways at once. To lose your tongue normally means not knowing what to say, but Ms. Bhatt suggests that one can lose one's tongue in another sense. The speaker in this poem is obviously the poet herself, but she speaks for many who fear they may have lost their ability to speak for themselves and their culture.
She explains this with the image of two tongues - a mother tongue (one's first language) and a second tongue (the language of the place where you live). She argues that you cannot use both together. She suggests, further, that if you live in a place where you must “speak a foreign tongue” then the mother tongue will “rot and die in your mouth”.
As if to demonstrate how this works, Ms. Bhatt rewrites lines 15 and 16 in Gujarati, followed by more Gujarati lines, which are given in English as the final section of the poem. For readers who do not know the Gujarati script, there is also a phonetic transcript using approximate English spelling to indicate the sounds.
The final section of the poem is the writer's dream - in which her mother tongue grows back and “pushes the other tongue aside”. She ends triumphantly asserting that “Everytime I think I've forgotten,/I think I've lost the mother tongue,/it blossoms out of my mouth.”
Clearly this poem is about personal and cultural identity. The familiar metaphor of the tongue is used in a novel way to show that losing one's language (and culture) is like losing part of one's body. The poet's dream may be something she has really dreamt “overnight” but is clearly also a “dream” in the sense of something she wants to happen - in dreams, if not in reality, it is possible for the body to regenerate. For this reason the poem's ending is ambiguous - perhaps it is only in her dream that the poet can find her “mother tongue”. On the other hand, she may be arguing that even when she thinks she has lost it, it can be found again. At the end of the poem there is a striking extended metaphor in which the regenerating tongue is likened to a plant cut back to a stump, which grows and eventually buds, to become the flower which “blossoms out of” the poet's mouth. It is as if her mother tongue is exotic, spectacular or fragrant, as a flower might be.
The poem's form is well suited to its subject. The flower is a metaphor for the tongue, which itself has earlier been used as a (conventional) metaphor, for speech. The poet demonstrates her problem by showing both “mother tongue” (Gujarati) and “foreign tongue” (English), knowing that for most readers these will be the other way around, while some, like her, will understand both.
The poem will speak differently to different generations - for parents, Gujarati may also be the “mother tongue”, while their children, born in the UK, may speak English as their first language. The poem is written both for the page, where we see the (possibly exotic) effect of the Gujarati text and for reading aloud, as we have a guide for speaking the Gujarati lines.
• What is the effect of using Gujarati script and an English transliteration in the poem?
• Does the way you read this depend on whether or not you know Gujarati as well as English?
• Many writers of classic English poetry often quote in Latin, French or other languages - is this a modern equivalent, or is Sujata Bhatt doing something different?
• How does the poem present the argument that our speech and ourselves are intimately connected? Do people not have to search for their own tongue - or authentic voice - even if they have not had to move from one language to another?
• What does the last sentence of the poem mean?
From - Universal Teacher
She explains this with the image of two tongues - a mother tongue (one's first language) and a second tongue (the language of the place where you live). She argues that you cannot use both together. She suggests, further, that if you live in a place where you must “speak a foreign tongue” then the mother tongue will “rot and die in your mouth”.
As if to demonstrate how this works, Ms. Bhatt rewrites lines 15 and 16 in Gujarati, followed by more Gujarati lines, which are given in English as the final section of the poem. For readers who do not know the Gujarati script, there is also a phonetic transcript using approximate English spelling to indicate the sounds.
The final section of the poem is the writer's dream - in which her mother tongue grows back and “pushes the other tongue aside”. She ends triumphantly asserting that “Everytime I think I've forgotten,/I think I've lost the mother tongue,/it blossoms out of my mouth.”
Clearly this poem is about personal and cultural identity. The familiar metaphor of the tongue is used in a novel way to show that losing one's language (and culture) is like losing part of one's body. The poet's dream may be something she has really dreamt “overnight” but is clearly also a “dream” in the sense of something she wants to happen - in dreams, if not in reality, it is possible for the body to regenerate. For this reason the poem's ending is ambiguous - perhaps it is only in her dream that the poet can find her “mother tongue”. On the other hand, she may be arguing that even when she thinks she has lost it, it can be found again. At the end of the poem there is a striking extended metaphor in which the regenerating tongue is likened to a plant cut back to a stump, which grows and eventually buds, to become the flower which “blossoms out of” the poet's mouth. It is as if her mother tongue is exotic, spectacular or fragrant, as a flower might be.
The poem's form is well suited to its subject. The flower is a metaphor for the tongue, which itself has earlier been used as a (conventional) metaphor, for speech. The poet demonstrates her problem by showing both “mother tongue” (Gujarati) and “foreign tongue” (English), knowing that for most readers these will be the other way around, while some, like her, will understand both.
The poem will speak differently to different generations - for parents, Gujarati may also be the “mother tongue”, while their children, born in the UK, may speak English as their first language. The poem is written both for the page, where we see the (possibly exotic) effect of the Gujarati text and for reading aloud, as we have a guide for speaking the Gujarati lines.
• What is the effect of using Gujarati script and an English transliteration in the poem?
• Does the way you read this depend on whether or not you know Gujarati as well as English?
• Many writers of classic English poetry often quote in Latin, French or other languages - is this a modern equivalent, or is Sujata Bhatt doing something different?
• How does the poem present the argument that our speech and ourselves are intimately connected? Do people not have to search for their own tongue - or authentic voice - even if they have not had to move from one language to another?
• What does the last sentence of the poem mean?
From - Universal Teacher
Wednesday, 3 December 2008
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