Grace Nichols is a poet who has written poems about immigration.

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Mr. Barlin                   English essay: Grace Nichols poems                  Ross Aylard

Grace Nichols is a poet who has written poems about immigration. These three poems that will be compared in these essays are all written by her and about the experience of immigration. However not all of them are necessarily from her point of view. ‘Island Man’ has been from a man’s point of view. In ‘My Gran visits England’ the poem may be written from her point of view but the poem focuses on the Gran and how she looks upon immigration.

 

In ‘Wherever I Hang’ Grace Nichols explores the differences between Guyana and England.

“And de humming bird splendour”

This line is a metaphor of what Grace Nichols sees Guyana as. The humming bird is the animal that represents the country, Beautiful, colourful, small and modest can all be used to describe both the country and the bird.

“Among the pigeons and the snow”

This line gives Grace Nichols impression of England. The pigeon can be described as dull, grey and ugly. Again this is also how she sees England. There also seems to be so many of them looking so similar that you cannot tell them apart. This is also how she sees the people in England are like. The words at the end, ‘splendour’ and ‘snow’ are also there to describe the two counties. These are the habitats that the two birds live in. The fact that they begin with the same letter gives the impression that they are directly comparable.

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In ‘Wherever I Hang’ Grace Nichols reveals in the poem that she felt so uncomfortable in England that the whole experience was almost fictitious.

“I touching de walls to see if they real

They solid to the seam”

At first it sounds like her doubts about the authenticity of England have been put to rest. But the last word ‘seam’ can also be spelt with a double e. This could then give a different meaning to the line, as in they seem real but are in fact are not. If she feels that nothing is as it seems ...

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