This blackly comic poem captures beautifully the way in which someone who feels they might have lived their life in a way that is not constrained by the conventional demands of work and “getting and spending” (as Wordsworth put it) takes revenge on a hitchhiker who has managed just that by attacking him and throwing him out of his car whilst it is moving quickly enough for him to be in “third gear”.
The choice of a dramatic monologue helps Armitage to articulate the imagined thoughts of the man who feels he has missed out on the free lifestyle that only requires “just a toothbrush and the good earth for a bed” (line 8).
Another way of reading the poem is in strictly metaphorical terms wherein the hitcher may well be the speaker himself remembering himself as a before he was enslaved a conventional working life. He may be denying that another side of him actually existed by saying that he and the hitcher are not exactly the same age.
The speaker in the poem is clearly worried about being given the sack from work when he hears an uncompromising message on his telephone answering machine and this is the italicised line 3. He “thumbed a lift” to where his car was parked. This is puzzling because it suggests that he, too, may be seen as a hitcher.
He then described picking up a hitcher in Leeds, a man who was “following the sun from west to east” (line 7), suggesting that his life is dictated by natural rhythms, no the mechanical interruptions of an answering machine or the demands of work. The hitcher quotes the 1960s radical folk singer, Bob Dylan by saying that the truth is “blowin’ in the wind”, / or round the next bend.” (lines 8-9). This incenses the speaker as he resents being reminded of the fact that he is not as free as this man and neither does he seem to have the courage to be like him.
In a shocking display of violence he says, “I let him have it”, going on to detail attacking the hitcher with a “krooklok”, something designed to secure a car’s steering wheel and never intended for use as a weapon. In saying that he “let him out” (line 17) we understand that he means that he pushed him out deliberately. This is an appalling act on top of the head butt and six blows to the face with the krooklok mentioned earlier.
The remainder of the incident is reported as a reflection in the speaker’s rear view mirror. He is described as “bouncing off the kerb” (line 18). The speaker seems utterly unconcerned by this and casually reports, “We were the same age, give or take a week.” His brutality is contrasted with the gentleness of the hitcher who “liked the breeze / to run its fingers / through his hair” (lines 20-22). The speaker then fixes the time of the incident precisely by relaying the weather forecast to which he has clearly been listening on his car radio. This compounds his appalling lack of concerns and the fact that he can be so self absorbed as to observe, “The outlook for the day was moderate to fair” (line 23). This is dreadfully shocking as it uses the language of the shipping forecast to make clear that the death of the hitcher has not spoiled the day; quite the opposite in fact – things could get better.
The concluding statement leaves the reader in no doubt that the speaker is utterly amoral: “Stitch that, I remember thinking, / you can walk from there.” (lines 24-5). The implication is that the hitcher will never be walking anywhere again, even though we are certain that he has died. As mentioned earlier in this commentary, it could be that the speaker has to leave his former self behind and has described this in terms of a murder to draw attention to the effects of a conventional life on the average working person. This may not be acceptable as an interpretation so it is important to arrive at your own conclusion.
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
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