Explore the ways in which two or three of these poems present the experience of living between two cultures and the difficulties it causes. The two poems I am choosing are "Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan" and "Search for My Tongue". "Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan" is written by Moniza Alvi, a woman who was born in Pakistan but moved to England at an early age. Her mother was from England and white, her Father was Pakistani and so black. This makes Moniza 'half-caste', as well as the aunts in poem being from her father's side. Her poem begins with a description of the gifts her aunts send her; "They sent me a salwar kameez peacock-blue, and another glistening like an orange split open…" The gifts are clothes in the typical Pakistani style, long tunic and loose trousers of blue and orange. Yet her indisposition towards the clothes is hinted at by her description of the first set of clothes. Peacock blue suggests that she feels like a peacock in them, showing off and flamboyant, something she doesn't want to be. They make her uncomfortable and self conscious. The next set of clothes show us the passage of time for Alvi with more clothes from her aunts. Yet as in England, and as she puts it, school, fashions change. The salwar bottoms are now broad and stiff then narrow towards the bottom. She tries on the clothes in sitting room, unwrapping them with her parents. She tries each one on and feels alien, as she puts is, to them. She doesn't' full reject them, but they are too exotic for her, too lovely for her. She acknowledges that they are pretty and acceptable clothes, but she cannot feel at ease in them. She longs for 'normal' clothes; "I longed for and corduroy." The clothes to her are a costume, something for other times, not now, "My costume clung to me and I was aflame, I couldn't rise out of this fire, half English, unlike Aunt Jamila." The clothes she is wearing are no doubt brightly coloured, perhaps like the orange ones from before. They seem like flames to her, and to others she presumes. They are too exotic, too foreign, and they draw too much attention. She cannot rise out of their flames; she cannot be seen through them. When people look at her wearing those, they will see the clothes, not a person. The clothes identify her as Pakistani, not English. That would be alright if she was sure of her own background, but she is not. By wearing those clothes her balance of ethnicity is thrown wildly askew.
The death camp was a terrible place where people where killed. Hitler is who created the death camp for Jews. The death camp was used for extermination on Jews. This occurred on 1939 – 1945. The death camps were in the country of Europe. Hitler did all this because he didn’t like Jews and the religions. The book Night is a autobiography written by Elie Wiesel. The poem called First they came for the communist written by Martin Neimoller is a autobiography.
This darkly satiric poem is about cultural imperialism. Dawe uses an extended metaphor: the mother is America and the child represents a younger, developing nation, which is slowly being imbued with American value systems. The figure of a mother becomes synonymous with the United States. Even this most basic of human relationships has been perverted by the consumer culture. The poem begins with the seemingly positive statement of fact 'She loves him ...’. The punctuation however creates a feeling of unease, that all is not as it seems, that there is a subtext that qualifies this apparently natural emotional attachment. From the outset it is established that the child has no real choice, that he must accept the 'beneficence of that motherhood', that the nature of relationships will always be one where the more powerful figure exerts control over the less developed, weaker being. The verb 'beamed' suggests powerful sunlight, the emotional power of the dominant person: the mother. The stanza concludes with a rhetorical question, as if undeniably the child must accept the mother's gift of love. Dawe then moves on to examine the nature of that form of maternal love. The second stanza deals with the way that the mother comforts the child, 'Shoosh ... shoosh ... whenever a vague passing spasm of loss troubles him'. The alliterative description of her 'fat friendly features' suggests comfort and warmth. In this world pain is repressed, real emotion pacified, in order to maintain the illusion that the world is perfect. One must not question the wisdom of the omnipotent mother figure. The phrase 'She loves him...' is repeated. This action of loving is seen as protecting, insulating the child. In much the same way our consumer cultur...
singled out because the color of your skin. She will never understand being torn from her parents
even to work on a farm, you need to have quite a lot of skill. The
"Poetry is the revelation of a feeling that the poet believes to be interior and personal [but] which the reader recognizes as his own." (Salvatore Quasimodo). There is something about the human spirit that causes us to rejoice in shared experience. We can connect on a deep level with our fellow man when we believe that somehow someone else understands us as they relate their own joys and hardships; and perhaps nowhere better is this relationship expressed than in that of the poet and his reader. For the current assignment I had the privilege (and challenge) of writing an imitation of William Shakespeare’s "Sonnet 87". This poem touched a place in my heart because I have actually given this sonnet to someone before as it then communicated my thoughts and feelings far better than I could. For this reason, Sonnet 87 was an easy choice for this project, although not quite so easy an undertaking as I endeavored to match Shakespeare’s structure and bring out his themes through similar word choice.
All the poems you have read are preoccupied with violence and/or death. Compare the ways in which the poets explore this preoccupation. What motivations or emotions do the poets suggest lie behind the preoccupation?
Explore how two of the poems you have studied deal with the theme of looking back on a relationship The two poems I have chosen to explain are Piano by D H Lawrence and In Mrs Tilchers Class by Carol Ann Duffy I have chosen these two. poems because they both tell us about the same sort of memory, i.e. of a good time in their childhood. Moving on to the mood of the poem. Both poems are very emotional and Although they are both happy memories, the emotions vary, for example. in Piano the poem is very sad and nostalgic 'till the heart of me.
She is a twenty-two-year-old Guest services Agent who is presently working at the Sheraton Hotel in Queens, New York. During my interview with her I discovered that she and her family of four migrated from Jamaica in search of a better life here in the United States of America. She portrayed a warm and friendly personality, as such it was easy for me to talk with her about self-identity. She informed me that while she was in Jamaica she excelled in High School and went on to University where she studied Health Science. Her reason for choosing that field was because her mother was very much involved in her development and encouraged her to stick to the sciences where she could specialize in becoming a medical doctor in the future. Listening to her, I realized that her decision at the time was based on what her mother had in mind for her and not necessarily what she wanted to become. I questioned her if she had figured out what she wanted to do with her life then, she clearly had no idea therefore she just followed her parent instruction. She pointed out that her mother who played a significant role in her life, always instilled in her the importance of a good education and that becoming a doctor would be the right choice. When she arrived in the United States everything changed. I followed up with the conversation and she told me that she started rebelling and didn’t want to go back to
Let me give you a little taste of my background. My mother happens to be...
Both, the poem “Reluctance” by Robert Frost and “Time Does Not Bring Relief” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, revolved around the theme of lost love. Each poet used a similar array of poetic devices to express this theme. Visual imagery was one of the illustrative poetic devices used in the compositions. Another poetic device incorporated by both poets in order to convey the mood of the poems was personification. And by the same token, metaphors were also used to help express the gist of both poems. Ergo, similar poetic devices were used in both poems to communicate the theme of grieving the loss of a loved one.
can't trust them even that basic amount?" Through this statement you can tell she desires
forced to watch one of his men die after failing to put his gas mask
mind that moving in with her was the question with which she was going to confront me.
The poem “Warned’ by Sylvia Stults, first seems to be about the ways human are hurting nature. However, when we look at the poem through the lens of John Shoptaw’s essay “Why Ecopoetry,” we see the evidence that this is an ecopoem and is asking people to take action to protect the environment. The poem is about the destruction of earth. The poet also tries to raises some awareness about the environment. Additionally, the internal meaning of the poem is that we, humans depend on the world’s resources, therefore we should take care of the natural world.
Poetry unlike fiction is solely based on the author’s personal take on a certain subject. The tone, diction, syntax, and mood of a poem are all determined by the author of the poem. For some readers, to interpret a poem or explain the plot can be a difficult task. Other forms of literature such, as fiction is much easier to understand and discuss.