Monday, 19 May 2008

From tomleonard.doc

From tomleonard.co.uk

The following few excerpts are basically provided for the thousands of English school students presently cursed with having to come up with exam answers if they choose this poem in their GCSE. What follows is not meant to "explain" the poem but simply to provide some context from some of Tom Leonard's other writings about the political nature of language in Britain. The poem itself was published in 1976.

Other prose and poetry connecting with the below can be found in Intimate Voices and Reports from the Present.


1973:

from The Proof of the Mince Pie, an essay in response to being asked to write an essay about "Culture".

Here's a university past-paper question on English Literature-it's one taken literally at random from some I've been looking at recently: "'Their imagery is rarely decorative, it is used to intensify their meaning. And it is through their imagery that we can distinguish their very different concepts of the relationship of man to God." Discuss with reference to two or more of the metaphysical poets." Well, discuss, but not in a Glasgow accent: simulate the middle-class modulations and bon-mots of the question to "discuss", in an exam hall with your brain packed with "key quotes" on your way to £2,000 a year, the different ideas some men had on "the relationship of man to God". Is nothing sacred? No, nothing is as far as the university is concerned; and the university is at the heart of the perpetuation of the "culture" myth. The university (and here I speak specifically about the arts faculties) is a reification of the notion that culture is synonymous with property. And the essentially acquisitive attitude to culture, "education", and "a good accent" is simply an aspect of the competitive, status-conscious class structure of the society as a whole.

What do a lot of people think of when one mentions the word "poetry" to them? More than once I've been told it's "Keats, and that"-sometimes I got Shelley, Milton and Shakespeare thrown in. As I heard one teacher put it, she always felt proud that she spoke the same language as "the byootiful lengwidge of Milton". And how often do you hear those letters on "Any Answers" etc. on the radio complaining about the corruption of "our beautiful English language"? The "beauty" of a lot of English poetry (particularly the Romantics) for many, is that the softness of its vowel-enunciation reinforces their class-status in society as the possessors of a desirable mode of speaking. And of course Keats's "Beauty is truth, truth beauty" goes down a bomb with the "Any Answers" brigade; where beauty in language is recognised as the property of a particular class, then naturally truth is assumed to be the property of that class also. So a person who doesn't "speak right" is therefore categorised as an ignoramus; it's not simply that he doesn't know how to speak right, but that this "inability" shows that he has no claim to knowledge of truth. That supposed insult "the language of the gutter" puts forward a revealing metaphor for society. The working-class rubbish, with all its bad pronunciation and dreadful swear words, is only really fit for draining away out of sight; the really great artist though, will recycle even this, to provide some "comic relief" to offset the noble emotions up top


1976:

Opening to essay The Locust Tree in Flower, and why it had difficulty flowering in Britain.
(an essay on the American poet William Carlos Williams)

What I like about Williams is his voice. What I like about Williams is his presentation of voice as a fact, as a fact in itself and as a factor in his relationship with the world as he heard it, listened to it, spoke it. That language is not simply a means of snooping round everything that is not itself - that's what I get from Williams.

The British are very sensitive about voice. Not sensitive the way Williams was sensitive, but in a very different way. And the answer lies as usual, not in the soil, but in the bankbook. There are basically two ways of speaking in Britain: one which lets the listener know that one paid for one's education, the other which lets the listener know that one didn't. Within these two categories there are wide variations, the line between the two is not always clear, and there are always loads of exceptions to any rule. But one can say of the two categories, the latter - the "free" education one - has much the wider variety. It is this very variety of regional
working-class accents which the "bought" education has promised to keep its pupils free from, and to provide them instead with a mode of pronunciation which ironically enough is called "Received". The "Received Pronunciation" of Edinburgh will differ from that of Oxford (in its retention or elision of the "r" in a word for example) but the message of the medium is basically the same: this pronunciation is not received at all, but mummy and daddy paid for it: this pronunciation is important not so much for what it is, but for what it isn't.

All modes of speech are valid - upper-class, middle-class, working-class, from whatever region: linguistic chauvinism is a drag, pre-judging people just because they speak "rough" or with the accent of another region, or equally, pre-judging people just because the speak "posh". But to have created, or at least to have preserved, a particular mode of pronunciation on a strictly economic base, cannot but have very deep repercussions in a society, and in the literature of a society - and there's no use in anyone trying to minimise the importance of this fact, because it's got to be seen for what it is, and what it's done.

When you have in a society on the one hand a standardised literary grammar (standardised spelling and standardised syntax) and on the other hand a standardised mode of pronunciation, the notion tends to get embedded in the consciousness of that society, that one is part of the essence of the other. Prescriptive grammar, in other words, becomes the sound made flesh of prescriptive pronunciation. The tawdry little syllogism goes something like this:-

1. In speaking of reality, there is a standard correct mode of pronunciation.
2. In writing of reality, there is a standard correct mode of pronunciation.
therefore,
3. In reality, correct spelling and correct syntax are synonymous with correct pronunciation.

Putting it another way, if a piece of writing can't be read aloud in a "correct" Received Pronunciation voice, then there must be something wrong with it. It's not valid. And this might not merely apply to the grammar of the writing, but the semantic content as well: since the standard pronunciation, having to be bought, is the property of the propertied classes,then only such content as these classes do not find disagreeable, can be "correct". Enter the inevitable assertion that the language of these economically superior classes is aesthetically superior - then in the interests of "Beauty" and "Truth", the regional and the working class languages,whatever else they're capable of, certainly aren't capable, the shoddy little things, of great Art.

Now this was bound to stick first, on any large scale, in the throat of the American voice; after all America,like Britain, is a property-based hierarchical society. Folks pay for their own education, folks stand on their own two feet.


Why then should an American follow grammatical rules of prose or poetry which in effect simulated a voicehe not only didn't have, but didn't want? By the early years of this century it was America, not Britain, that was the great economic industrial powerinthe English-speaking world. The times were ripe, as they say, for a fundamental change in the nature of written English. It's important I believe to see Williams against this background of a shift in linguistic-political power; it's one important aspect, that is, amongst several. The following is how Williams himself, in his autobiography, saw the fundamental change that was taking place:-

That was the secret meaning inside the term "transition"during the years when the painters following Cezanne began to talk of sheer paint: a picture a matter of pigments upon a piece of cloth stretched on a frame.

... It is the making of that step, to comeover into the tactile qualities, the wordsthemselves beyond the mere thought expressed that distinguishes the modern, or distinguished the modern of the time from the period before the turn of the century.
(William Carlos Williams: Autobiography New Directions 1967, p. 380)

Granted that repeatedly in hiswriting,andinhis disagreement with Eliot, Williams insists on the necessity of recognising the non-English nature of the American idiom. But the quoteabove from Williams's autobiography illustrates that Williams was not interested in simply replacing one linguistic-political tool (or bludgeon) with another. His inclination to see and treat language as an object in itself might havebeenmotivated bythethought that this was a necessary initial process prior to the consolidation of a specifically American poetic mode - but in treating themediumofpoetry, language, as an object in itself, he was simply keeping abreast of developments in the other arts of his time.


1985:

A Short History of the British Judiciary (from Situations Theoretical and Contemporary, a sequence)

And their judges spoke with one dialect
but the condemned spoke with many voices.

And the prisons were full of many voices,
but never the dialect of the judges.

And the judges said:

 

 

"No-one is above the Law."


1991:

A Short History of the British Army (from Leonard's Shorter Catechism, a Q&A about the bombing of Iraq and Kuwait)

Q. What is the percentage of people in command of the British Army who have working-class accents?
A. I'm sorry, he would have been pleased to speak to you, but he is in bed with laryngitis.

Q. What is the percentage of British troops in the front line who have public school accents?
A. I'm sorry, he would have been pleased to speak to you, but he is in bed with laryngitis.

diff cultures from universalteacher].doc

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.

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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.

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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?

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Tom Leonard: from Unrelated Incidents

This poem uses non-standard English to explore notions of class, education and nationality. The poem is a phonetic transcript which shows how a Glaswegian Scot might speak. The poet imagines the BBC newsreader smugly explaining why he does not talk “lik/wanna you/scruff” - though in this version, of course, he is doing just this. The writer takes on the persona of a less educated or “ordinary” Glaswegian, with whom he clearly identifies.

The poem is set out in lines of two, three or four syllables, but these are not end-stopped. The effect is almost certainly meant to be of the Autocue used by newsreaders (the text scrolls down the screen a few words at a time).

The poem seems puzzling on the page, but when read out aloud makes better sense. A Scot may find it easier to follow than a reader from London, say.

The most important idea in the poem is that of truth - a word which appears (as “trooth”) three times, as well as one “troo”. The speaker in the poem (with whom the poet seems to sympathize) suggests that listeners or viewers trust a speaker with an RP (Received Pronunciation) or “BBC” accent. He claims that viewers would be mistrustful of a newsreader with a regional accent, especially one like Glaswegian Scots, which has working-class or even (unfairly) criminal associations in the minds of some people.

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The poem is humorous and challenges our prejudices. Leonard may be a little naïve in his argument, however: RP gives credibility to people in authority or to newsreaders, because it shows them not to favour one area or region - it is meant to be neutral. The RP speaker appears educated because he or she is aware of, and has dropped, distinctive local or regional peculiarities. And though RP is not spoken by everyone, it is widely understood, much more so than any regional accent in the UK. Tom Leonard's Glasgow accent would confuse many listeners, as would any marked regional voice. RP has the merit of clarity.

  • How does this poem work on the page and when read aloud? Do we need both to see it and hear it to get a full understanding?
  • How does the poem challenge social attitudes and prejudices about language?
  • Is this poem serious or funny or both at once? Say why.
  • How does the poet explore the relationship between accent, public speaking and truth?
  • What is the point of the last two words in the poem?

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John Agard: Half-Caste

This poem develops a simple idea which is found in a familiar, if outdated phrase. Half-caste as a term for mixed race is now rare. The term comes from India, where people are rigidly divided into groups (called castes) which are not allowed to mix, and where the lowest caste is considered untouchable. In the poem John Agard pokes fun at the idea. He does this

  • with an ironic suggestion of things only being “half” present,
  • by puns, and
  • by looking at the work of artists who mix things.

It is not clear whether Agard speaks as himself here, or speaks for others.

The poem opens with a joke - as if “half-caste” means only half made (reading the verb as cast rather than caste), so the speaker stands on one leg as if the other is not there. Agard ridicules the term by showing how the greatest artists mix things - Picasso mixes the colours, and Tchaikovsky use the black and white keys in his piano symphonies, yet to call their art “half-caste” seems silly. The image of the black and white keys on the piano was used in a similar way by Paul McCartney in the song Ebony and Ivory:

“Ebony and ivory
live together in perfect harmony
side by side on my piano keyboard, Oh, Lord
why can't we?”

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Agard playfully points out how England's weather is always a mix of light and shadow - leading to a very weak pun on “half-caste” and “overcast” (clouded over). The joke about one leg is recalled later in the poem, this time by suggesting that the “half-caste” uses only half of ear and eye, and offers half a hand to shake, leading to the absurdities of dreaming half a dream and casting half a shadow. The poem, like a joke, has a punchline - the poet invites his hearer to “come back tomorrow” and use the whole of eye, ear and mind. Then he will tell “de other half/of my story”.

Though the term “half-caste” is rarely heard today, Agard is perhaps right to attack the idea behind it - that mixed race people have something missing. Also, they often suffer hostility from the racial or ethnic communities of both parents. Though the poem is light-hearted in tone, the argument of the last six lines is very serious, and has a universal application: we need to give people our full attention and respect, if we are to deserve to hear their whole “story”.

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The form of the poem is related to its subject, as Agard uses non-standard English, in the form of Afro-Caribbean patois. This shows how he stands outside mainstream British culture. There is no formal rhyme-scheme or metre, but the poem contains rhymes (“wha yu mean...mix red an green”). A formal device which Agard favours is repetition: “Explain yuself/wha yu mean”, for example. The poem is colloquial, written as if spoken to someone with imperatives (commands) like “Explain yuself” and questions like “wha yu mean”. The punctuation is non-standard using the hyphen (-) and slash (/) but no comma nor full stop, not even at the end. The spelling uses both standard and non-standard forms - the latter to show pronunciation. The patois is most marked in its grammar, where verbs are missed out (“Ah listening” for “I am listening” or “I half-caste human being” for “I am half-caste”).

When you write about the poem you should perhaps not use the term “half-caste” except to discuss how Agard presents it. If you need to, use a term like “mixed race”. For older readers, especially those aware of the (now scientifically discredited) racial theories of the Nazis, this poem seems powerful and relevant. And in Britain today, resistance to mixed-race couples (who may have mixed-race children) is as likely to come from an Asian or Afro-Caribbean parent as from a white Anglo-Saxon family. (In some ethnic groups, there is enormous family pressure to marry within the community.) Younger readers, especially in cosmopolitan communities, may wonder what the fuss is about.

  • How important is it for the poet to write in non-standard English?
  • The poem makes a serious point but uses humour to do so. What kinds of humour do you find here and how well do they work?
  • How does John Agard explore the meanings of “half” and “whole” in this poem?

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Derek Walcott: Love after Love

This poem is about self-discovery. Walcott suggests that we spend years assuming an identity, but eventually discover who we really are - and this is like two different people meeting and making friends and sharing a meal together. Walcott presents this in terms of the love feast or Eucharist of the Christian church - “Eat...Give wine. Give bread.” And it is not clear whether this other person is merely human or in some way divine.

The poem begins with the forecast of the time when this recognition will occur - a moment of great happiness (“elation”) as “you...greet yourself” and “each will smile at the other's welcome”.

The second stanza suggests that one has to fit in with others' ideas or accommodate oneself to the world, and so become a stranger to oneself - but in time one will see who the stranger really is, and welcome him or her home. Our everyday life is seen, therefore, as a kind of temporary disloyalty, in which one ignores oneself “for another” - but all along it is the true self, the stranger “who has loved you” and “who knows you by heart”.

And when this time comes, then one can recall and review one's life - look at the record of love-letters, photographs and notes, and what one sees in the mirror - and sit and feast on one's life.

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The poem is written in the second person - as if the poet addresses the reader directly. It is full of imperative verbs (commands) “sit”, “give”, “eat”, “take” and “feast”. The poet repeats words or variants of them - “give”, “love”, “stranger” and “life”. The verse form is irregular but most lines are loosely iambic and some (the 8th and 13th, for example) are quite regular tetrameters.

This is a very happy poem, especially in its view of the later years of life, not as a time of loss but of fulfilment and recovery.

  • What do you think this poem means? Why does the poet imagine someone as being like two different people at the same time?
  • How important is it for us to recognize what we are really like and accept ourselves for this?
  • Why is the poem written to “you” rather than about “me”? Is the poet giving advice to everyone?
  • Why does the poem use images of feasting?

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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.)

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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?

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Niyi Osundare: Not My Business

This poem is about shared responsibility and the way that tyranny grows if no one opposes it. It is composed, simply, of three stories about victims of the oppressors, followed by the experience of the speaker in the poem. The poet is Nigerian but the situation in the poem could be from many countries. It echoes, in its four parts, a statement by Pastor Martin Niemöller, who opposed the Nazis. Speaking later to many audiences he would conclude with these words, more or less:

“First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

The oppressors are not specified, only identified by the pronoun “they” - but we suppose them to be the agents of the state, perhaps soldiers or police officers. The first story is Akanni's - he is seized in the morning, beaten then taken away in a jeep. We do not know if he ever returned.

The second victim is Danladi - whose family is awoken at night. Danladi is away for a long time (though there is a hint that this person eventually comes back). Last comes Chinwe, who has been an exemplary worker (she has a “stainless record”) but finds that she has been given the sack without any warning or reason.

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After each of these three accounts, the speaker in the poem asks what business it is of his (or hers) - with the implication that these people's experiences are not connected to him. The speaker's only concern is for the next meal (“the yam” in “my savouring mouth”).

The poem ends with a knock on the door, and the oppressors' jeep parked outside. There seems some justice in the timing of the appearance of the jeep: “As I sat down to eat my yam”.

The poet makes it clear that the oppressors thrive when their victims act only for themselves - if they organize, then they can be stronger. Niyi Osundare also criticizes the character in the poem for thinking only of food - or perhaps understands that, in a poor country, hunger is a powerful weapon of the tyrant.

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It is easy to take for granted the freedoms some of us enjoy in liberal democracies. But these are not found everywhere. There are housing estates, places of work and even schools where these basic liberties may be lost for some reason - anywhere where bullies find that their victims do not stand up for themselves or resist their power. Osundare makes it clear that it is always our business.

The poem has a very clear structure - we are told the time of each of the episodes and what happened, followed by the refrain: “What business of mine is it...?” Except for the last occasion - because it is obvious now that it (the state terror) is everyone's business. And now it is more obviously the speaker's business. We do not yet know what “they” have in store for this next victim, but we do not suppose it to be pleasant. And it turns out that merely to keep quiet and try not to be noticed is no guarantee of safety. Why not? Because the oppressors are not reasonable people who pick only on the troublemakers - they sustain a reign of terror by the randomness of their persecution of harmless or innocent people.

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The names and the reference to the “yam” tell us that the poem has an African setting but apart from these details the scenes could happen in any place where the people suffer under tyranny.

  • How does the poet show that we are always wrong to say that bad things are not our business, so long as they happen to other people?
  • Do you think that the speaker in this poem is meant to be the poet? Give reasons for your answer.
  • In the west it may be easy to take our freedom for granted. Does this poem make you think more seriously about it?
  • How does the poet use the chorus in the first three verses to make his point?

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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.

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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.

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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?

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Grace Nichols: Hurricane Hits England

The central image in this poem is not the poet's invention but drawn from her (and other people's) experience. The hurricanes that sometimes strike England as destructive storms really do bring the Caribbean (or its weather) to Britain - they retrace the poet's journey from the west, and recall her own origins.

The poem begins in the third person (note the pronouns “her” and “she”) but changes in the second stanza to a first-person view as the poet speaks of herself, and addresses the tropical winds. The speaker here could be anyone who has made this journey, but Grace Nichols is probably speaking for herself in the poem. The poem is written mostly as free verse - there is no rhyme scheme; stanzas vary in length, as do the lines, though the first line of the poem is a perfect pentameter.

The poem is interesting for its range of vocabulary. Ms. Nichols uses the patois form “Huracan” and names the gods (“Oya” and “Shango”) of the Yoruba tribe, who were taken as slaves to the Caribbean in times past. She connects this to the modern world, as she names the notorious Hurricane Hattie (of October 1961). There is interesting word play in “reaping havoc” - a pun on the familiar phrase “wreaking (making or causing) havoc”. The poem also brings together the four elements of earth, air (wind), fire (lightning) and water.

But the most striking things in this poem are the images and symbols from the natural world, which explain the poet's relationship to the Caribbean and to England. The wind is called a “howling ship” - “howling” we expect to find with “wind”, not “ship”. (Technically, this is a transferred epithet.) But the wind is like a ship in having travelled across the ocean. This nautical image is echoed later by the comparison of felled trees to “whales”. The reference to an “ancestral spectre” calls to mind the worship of the spirits of ancestors, a practice the slaves took from Africa to the West Indies. Here the ghost of the ancestor is perhaps rebuking the poet for leaving the Caribbean.

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In the fourth stanza, Ms. Nichols contrasts the massive power of the natural electricity of lightning with the electricity generated by man. The electrical storm cuts off the mains electricity, plunging us into “further darkness”. This may be the literal darkness of England in winter, or a metaphor for the poet's dismay at leaving her homeland.

The fallen trees (which lie around in England after a tropical storm) are seen by the poet as like herself, uprooted from her home. The wind brings warmth to “break (the ice of) the frozen lake” in her - as if the English weather has caused her to lose touch with her emotions. (Associating one's mood with the prevailing weather is a well-established poetic convention, sometimes known as the pathetic fallacy. Here pathetic means to do with feelings [Greek pathos]. It is a fallacy [mistaken belief] because our moods do not literally control the weather (unless we have special magical powers), though often the weather does influence our moods!)

Perhaps the most powerful image, from a Caribbean writer, is that which has its own line, where Grace Nichols asks: “O why is my heart unchained?” In expressing her sense of joy, after the storm has hit England, she recalls the image of freed slaves being released from the chains in which they have been held. Here she shows awareness of her historical culture.

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Finally, the sense that England and the Caribbean are all part of the same planet is spelled out in the poem's last line. This reads like a tautology (look it up) but expresses Ms. Nichols' sense that the reader needs to know the essential nature of the earth. It may be an imitation of a line by the comic writer Gertrude Stein, who wrote, in Sacred Emily, that “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”.

  • How does the poem (and the hurricane) connect England and the Caribbean?
  • Comment on the way that Grace Nichols uses the names of the tribal gods and the hurricanes in this poem.
  • How does Grace Nichols use images of weather and nature to explore human emotions?
  • What is the effect of the last line of the poem?

 

y11 fill in the gaps exercise 2.doc

How does Sujata Bhatt show that identity is important in ‘from Search For My Tongue’ (page 12)? Compare the methods she uses with the methods another poet uses to show that identity is important in one other poem.

 

 

 

In ‘Search For My Tongue’, Sujata Bhatt explores the issue of identity by .......................................................... Her approach is similar to that used by ............ in the poem ................................. where identity is represented by ...........................

 

Both poems highlight the cultural conflict faced by someone who moves to a new country. In ‘Search For My Tongue’, the character represented in the poem has moved to Europe from ..................... She speaks the local language by day, but at night dreams in ..................... This shows that ………………………………….. In contrast, in ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’, Moniza Alvi uses clothes as a …………………………. for the clash between two cultures. There is a big difference between the image of the ‘peacock blue’ salwar kameez – the image which starts the poem, and the point half-way through, where the ‘………………………………………………………..’. The character in the poem sounds deflated at that point, where all her memories of Pakistan are vibrant and lively, contrasting with the drab idea of ‘cardigans from Marks and Spencers’.

 

Alvi and Bhatt both use images and poetic devices that reinforce the contrast between ………………….…… and …………………... In ‘Presents from my Aunts’, Alvi focuses on clothes and jewellery, ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….  In ‘Search For Tongue’, Bhatt strikes a more ………… tone than in ‘Presents from my Aunts’. She shows her character resenting the culture of the new country more than Alvi does: ‘………………………………………………………’. This may be because of the age of the voice in the poems: Bhatt shows us someone who is of working age; Alvi uses a teenage schoolgirl, so their view of the world is somewhat different.

 

 

This contrast between the culture of the country of birth and the country the person has moved to is also used in ‘……………………………..’, where the difference between the new language and old language is emphasised even more. Early on the poem, the character in the poem speaks of how her ‘’, but later in the poem, after dreaming in Gujerati, the imagery has changed – and the words now used include ‘……..’, ‘………..’, ‘……………’, suggesting a rebirth of the mother language, and of cultural identity. The idea of drifting away with your memories to your original country is also used by Alvi in ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’, where we get glimpses of the original culture: ‘my aunts in shaded rooms’, ‘staring through fretwork’ – images that ……………………………….

 

Overall, the two poems suggest that…………………………………………………. They include some very effective imagery, to show us how difficult it can be to adapt to…………

 

Presents and Search comparison grid 1.doc

 

Presents from my Aunt in Pakistan

from Search For My Tongue

what the different feelings are in each poem

 

 

how the feelings conflict

 

 

similarities between the ways in which the poets present the conflict of feelings

 

 

differences between the ways in which the poets present the conflict of feelings

 

 

what you think about these conflicts of feelings

 

 

 

y11 fill in the gaps exercise 2.doc

How does Sujata Bhatt show that identity is important in ‘from Search For My Tongue’ (page 12)? Compare the methods she uses with the methods another poet uses to show that identity is important in one other poem.

 

 

 

In ‘Search For My Tongue’, Sujata Bhatt explores the issue of identity by .......................................................... Her approach is similar to that used by ............ in the poem ................................. where identity is represented by ...........................

 

Both poems highlight the cultural conflict faced by someone who moves to a new country. In ‘Search For My Tongue’, the character represented in the poem has moved to Europe from ..................... She speaks the local language by day, but at night dreams in ..................... This shows that ………………………………….. In contrast, in ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’, Moniza Alvi uses clothes as a …………………………. for the clash between two cultures. There is a big difference between the image of the ‘peacock blue’ salwar kameez – the image which starts the poem, and the point half-way through, where the ‘………………………………………………………..’. The character in the poem sounds deflated at that point, where all her memories of Pakistan are vibrant and lively, contrasting with the drab idea of ‘cardigans from Marks and Spencers’.

 

Alvi and Bhatt both use images and poetic devices that reinforce the contrast between ………………….…… and …………………... In ‘Presents from my Aunts’, Alvi focuses on clothes and jewellery, ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….  In ‘Search For Tongue’, Bhatt strikes a more ………… tone than in ‘Presents from my Aunts’. She shows her character resenting the culture of the new country more than Alvi does: ‘………………………………………………………’. This may be because of the age of the voice in the poems: Bhatt shows us someone who is of working age; Alvi uses a teenage schoolgirl, so their view of the world is somewhat different.

 

 

This contrast between the culture of the country of birth and the country the person has moved to is also used in ‘……………………………..’, where the difference between the new language and old language is emphasised even more. Early on the poem, the character in the poem speaks of how her ‘’, but later in the poem, after dreaming in Gujerati, the imagery has changed – and the words now used include ‘……..’, ‘………..’, ‘……………’, suggesting a rebirth of the mother language, and of cultural identity. The idea of drifting away with your memories to your original country is also used by Alvi in ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’, where we get glimpses of the original culture: ‘my aunts in shaded rooms’, ‘staring through fretwork’ – images that ……………………………….

 

Overall, the two poems suggest that…………………………………………………. They include some very effective imagery, to show us how difficult it can be to adapt to…………

 

2 Compare the methods the poets use to get across their points of view in.doc

2 Compare the methods the poets use to get across their points of view in .Half-Caste. (page 13)

and one other poem of your choice from the Poems from Different Cultures.

Write about:

! what the points of view are

! the methods that are used to get across these points of view

! similarities between the methods the poets use

! differences between the methods the poets use

! what you think about the points of view. (27 marks)

 

 

2 Compare the ways in which the poets use language in interesting and unusual ways in from Unrelated

Incidents  (page 12) and one other poem from the Poems from Different Cultures.

Compare:

! the ways the language is interesting and unusual

! ideas brought out by the poets. uses of language

! feelings brought out by the poets. uses of language

! your own response to these uses of language, thoughts and feelings. (27 marks)

 

2 Compare the methods the poets use to get across their points of view in .Half-Caste. (page 13)

and in one other poem. (27 marks)

 

2 Compare the ways poets suggest that belonging to a particular culture or cultures is important in Presents

from my Aunts in Pakistan (pages 16 and 17) and one other poem.

(27 marks)