Parveer Singh 10EW
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 ‘Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan’, she describes the salwar kameez she received as "glistening like an orange split open", which relates it to something beautiful and metaphorical. Likewise, she describes some glass bangles from India as "candy-striped", somehow bringing the items to life whilst making them elaborate and interesting. Grace Nichols too uses imagery to identify the reader with the beauty of her origin. In Hurricane Hits England, she describes quite graphically the movement of the hurricane, making it appear almost human in descriptions such as "the howling ship of the wind" and "its gathering rage". This helps to create an image of the hurricane in the reader's mind, and such explicit description as in the poem brings the hurricane to life. By creating a mental image in the reader's mind with the use of such descriptive imagery, it aids the reader to relate more to the poem and what the writer is trying to convey. This way, even if the reader does not know how living in another culture would affect them, they can still understand the poet and how it may be a uneasy situation.
