Search For My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt, Hurricane Hits England by Grace Nichols and Presents from Aunts in Pakistan by Moniza Alzi

Search For My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt, Hurricane Hits England by Grace

Nichols and Presents from Aunts in Pakistan by Moniza Alzi

'Search For My Tongue', by Sujata Bhatt is a forceful poem describing

her experience of being caught between two cultures. This poem

expresses how she feels that she has lost her mother tongue while

speaking the foreign language within which she now lives, but in her

dreams it grows back. Similarly, 'Hurricane Hits England', by Grace

Nichols describes how she felt alone in England, a foreign country to

her, and the delight when the hurricane struck as it brought back

memories of her origin. 'Present from my Aunts in Pakistan', by Moniza

Alvi also describes the difficulties in being caught between two

cultures. In this, she is torn between the bland British culture she

lives in and the more exotic culture of her aunts from Pakistan, who

send her luxurious gifts she feels she cannot use in Britain.

All three poems mentioned above involve a deliberate use of language

to help convey their message, one of which is the use of imagery

within the poem. The poems contain detailed descriptions to help the

reader create a mental image, and hence they can associate more with

the poem. In 'Search for My Tongue', Sujata Bhatt compares the growth

of her tongue to a flower growing, describing it as "a stump of a

shoot" and "the bud opens". This use of imagery makes the re-growth of

the mother tongue seem mysterious and beautiful, as well as portraying

how the tongue grows back, thus likening it to the development of a

flower. Moniza Alvi also uses imagery to make the presents from

Pakistan seem exotic and interesting. In 'P...

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...the structure is also one of

negative to positive. However in this poem, the reader does not

realise that the poet is truly homesick until near the end of the

poem, where she asks the hurricane "Come to break the frozen lake in

me". It still ends positively because the poet comes to peace with her

new surroundings due to the Hurricane.

The three poems mentioned in this essay are all about being caught

between two cultures, and the poets communicate this message in both

different and similar ways. Each poem gives the reader a clearer

understanding of how it might feel to be torn between two cultures,

even if they have no actual experience of this. Therefore the poets

have achieved their aim of expressing their emotions to the reader in

a way that they can relate to and show how they are stuck between two

cultures.