Another image, which Nichols uses throughout the section, is that there is always something lurking beneath the surface. “Price We Pay for the Sun” shows this by stating that even though most people see the island as “picture postcards” but really they cause cancer and Nichols says that “Poverty is the price we pay for the sun”. This shows the sinister issue, which Nichols sees now as an adult, which she may not have seen as a child. This is once again shown in “Childhood” by the way in which Nichols shows how at the time she saw the “droves of fish” as a miracle but as a n adult she sees how it causes poverty and is the sign for a drought. This once again shows the underlying uneasiness, which she now sees but did not see before. “Back Home Contemplation” is the main poem to show this impression, which Nichols is trying to give. As it is the title poem for the section it shows to the reader immediately its importance.
“There is more to heaven
than meet the eye” shows to the reader once again that there is always something more complex than you may originally think. This shows to them how Nichols firstly saw the events of her childhood as magical but now she can see things differently but this still does not change how she saw her childhood.
The lexical framework that Nichols uses also portrays the effect she wishes to, to the reader. Nichols uses long soft sounding syllables in order to portray the softness that she felt towards her home country. “Those Women” describes the women standing “in the brown voluptuous water of their own element “. The soft sounds show how she loves her home country and informs the reader of the softness of her culture. She also uses this technique in “Praise Song for My Mother” when describing her mother as “deep bold and fathoming” which are all long sounding words. This also gives the sound of water flowing and therefore shows the reader the strength and happiness, which she found as a child.
Nichols contrasts this technique by also using a phonetic and graphological framework in this section. The phonology that she uses encourages the fact that she wishes for her poems to be heard as well as read. She uses this technique is “Sea Timeless Song” which once again shows the strength and continuity of water. By using repetition of “sea timeless” Nichols creates the sound of water and waves to the reader or listener when the poem is read out loud. This once again shows her passion for the idea of water representing her family and that she can emphasise the appreciation of her poems in many different ways. She also uses this technique in “Price We Pay for the Sun” which uses the term “sulph-furious”. The way in which this word affects the reader varies according to whether it is seen or heard. It has the effect of sounding like the element sulphur as well as the anger underneath by the word furious. This once again shows the reader that the poems are meant to be heard as well as seen and also conveys the idea that things are not always what they seem and there may be something lurking underneath.
The graphology that Nichols uses in her framework also causes a certain effect for the reader when looking at the poem. It sets the scene for the reader and automatically takes them back to Guyana with them. “Hey There Now!” is written with the lines flowing together like a river and gives the impression of water flowing together. This once again emphasises to the reader the importance of water in her poems and the strength it gives her. Also the way in which the lines flow shows the continuity of water which Nichols uses to represent the way in which her family are continuous from their origin.
The tone which Nichols uses seem to revert back to the way in which she would have spoken at the time of the memory. Nichols uses elements of Creole grammar in this way in order to recreate the phonetics of the poem. In “Be a Butterfly” Nichols uses this technique in order to recreate the priest’s voice and therefore preach his sermon to the readers or listeners of he poetry. “kyatta-pillar” is used rather than caterpillar in order to show how he would have spoken and this almost
takes the reader back to her home country with her. She also uses this technique is “Sea Timeless Song” which says, “hurricane come and hurricane go” which shows that the nouns are inflected with an ‘s’. This
once again takes the reader to her place of origin and gives them the impression that are there with her and living her memories with her.
Another tone, which Nichol’s recreates, is that of a child to show the time at which this memory is from to the reader. “Iguana Memory” shows how Nichols recreates this tone “big like big big lizard” shows to the reader the childish voice, which Nichols impersonates in order to create this effect. She does this to once again take the reader back with her and create a vivid image in their head of her memory, which she saw, as if they had seen it themselves.
In conclusion Nichols uses many different techniques in order to show the importance of her childhood to the readers and listeners of her poems. She uses many different frameworks in order to emphasise the poem to every sense for the reader and therefore create a more vivid and expressive image for them. Nichols uses the poems in this section to show her ancestor’s movement to the Caribbean but also her own movement to England. She represents her self and her ancestors and not only show her memories but the memories of her family too as she begins to unfold a vision of her memories which traces the beginnings of her own memories as a child as well as those from the continent of Africa.
