‘but we know where we belong,’ from ‘Nothing’s Changed’.
‘and I was aflame,
I couldn’t rise up out of its fire,’ from ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’.
The poets in each of the poems all feel the need to belong. This is clearly shown in ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’. The poet lives in England and wants to belong in their culture and be involved in the western traditions. She wants to fit in with the people in her community,
‘I longed for denim and corduroy’
The items and traditions that she wanted so badly, she didn’t receive. Instead she received Pakistani clothes and items that she felt she didn’t truly belong in,
‘I tried each satin-silken
top-
was alien in the sitting-room’
Consequently she feels different to the western environment around her. But saying this she believes that she is too different for Pakistan. The Asian world is too exotic and different for her and when she tries to become a part of this cultural community she doesn’t feel accurate or ordinary,
‘My costume clung to me’
Therefore she believes that she is too western to be Asian, but too Asian to be western,
‘and I was there –
of no fixed nationality’
She feels that she is in limbo and doesn’t belong to either culture.
This feeling of difference is also shown in the other three poems. In ‘Half-Caste’ the poet feels that he is being discriminated against because he is different to the people around him. The people who are obviously not from ethnic backgrounds are labelling him differently,
‘wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste’
In ‘Search For My Tongue’ she feels that by loosing her language, she is loosing her identity and no one will understand her, leading to the feeling of difference and the need to belong. This is again how the poet in ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’ feels, like nobody understands her or can relate to her.
In ‘Nothing’s Changed’ the poet explains in detail how he doesn’t belong, just like in the other three poems. As in ‘Half-Caste’ he feels discriminated and segregated by the white population surrounding him. I know this because throughout the poem, the poet uses language that, I think, relates to a poor child. As I read parts of the poem, I get an image of a small, defenceless, unwanted boy. This is almost certainly because of this particular phrase,
‘I back from the
glass,
boy again,
leaving small mean O
of small mean mouth.’
This reminds me of a hungry child looking into a sweet shop of which the contents he can’t reach. You are made to think like this because it relates to how the poet is feeling towards the facilities owned by the white people. Even though these amenities are open to all races, he feels intimidated and he can’t help listening to his instincts that have been formed through years of racism. These instincts tell him this,
‘whites only inn’
He knows this even though,
‘No sign says it is.’
Unlike the other three poems, in ‘Search For My Tongue’ the poet is feeling guilty. She believes that she has let her ethnic language down by neglecting it.
‘Half-Caste’ and ‘Search For My Tongue’ both contain an extended metaphor. In ‘Half-Caste’, throughout the poem the poet is comparing the phrase that people call him, to other things that are ‘half-caste’,
‘half-caste canvas.’
By using this extended metaphor, the poet is saying that half-caste is not a name that a human being should be called. It is not a plausible name to describe someone. The poet believes that the people who call him this, need to explain what they mean when they use this term,
‘Explain yuself’
This metaphor is sarcastic and even though it shows that he is angry about the name he is called, he doesn’t get depressed or is defeated because of it, which is like the poet in ‘Search For My Tongue’. To get upset about the unethical phrase of which people call him, is obviously not in his nature.
‘Search For My Tongue’ is a poem that revolves around the extended metaphor. It contains a lot of great imagery. The metaphorical language creates detailed images of Mother Nature. The poet describes the loss of her native language as a horrible, neglected thing that because of its’ neglect, it is rotting and dying. She describes that when it dies, it becomes so awful that she has to spit it out.
‘your mother tongue would rot,
rot and die in your mouth
until you had to spit it out.’
This thorough explanation of her language disappearing makes you realise how awful it is to lose a language, especially your first, mother language. This is just one of the ways the poet explains to us how difficult and isolated it is for her. She describes her language returning and progressing in a similar way. She uses great imagery to portray how wonderful it is for her when her language returns. As before she uses Mother Nature to depict this. The poet describes this by comparing it to a bud developing to reveal its’ full beauty,
‘it grows back, a stump of a shoot
grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins’.
‘it blossoms out of my mouth.’
Another good use of imagery is the phrase that describes the original language taking over the second language,
‘it ties the other tongue in knots’.
With this phrase, you can visualise the shoot binding in knots, unable to escape while the dominant of the two continues to sprouts upwards. The poet uses this use of imagery to make us see what it is really like for her. She wants us to understand how hurtful, but then superb it is to lose and then recover her essential language.
This use of detailed imagery is also used in ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’. This is mainly used when the poet is describing the clothes from Pakistan,
‘They sent me a salwar kameez
peacock blue’.
Using the word peacock immediately makes me visualise the exotic, vibrant colours of the bird’s tail. The blue then makes me visualise the rich, deep blues that the clothing could be.
‘Candy-striped glass bangles’.
This makes me visualise the shiny, sweet colours of a child’s candy cane. By including this use of imagery, the poet is making you visualise the wonderful colours and quality of the garments sent to her from Pakistan. These lines truly appeal to your senses. The poet describes the clothes in such a way because she believes that she is not good enough for these clothes and she wouldn’t be able to feel truthful whilst wearing these clothes,
‘I could never be as lovely
as those clothes.’
She believes that she is now too western to be wearing these cultural clothes, but it could also just be an excuse not to wear them. She doesn’t feel correct in the exotic clothes, they are not who she really is,
‘My costume clung to me’.
This particular line is describing what she feels when she puts on the clothes. She feels like they are an outfit that you don’t wear in reality.
As well as ‘Search For My Tongue’, this use of imagery can be seen in ‘Nothing’s Changed’. This is because of the images that I mentioned about before, which was about the young, defenceless boy.
The tone that the poet uses in ‘Half-Caste’ is angry but with a sarcastic feel to it,
‘Excuse me
standing on one leg
I’m half-caste’.
He is angry because the people around him are labelling him with a term he doesn’t agree with. He also uses a sarcastic tone throughout the poem. He does this by using comparisons to other things that contain the words ‘half’ and ‘caste’,
‘half-caste canvas’
By doing this he is saying that the people are labelling him with a term that shouldn’t be used on a person. He is sarcastic because that is just the way he is and he won’t let the discrimination get him down. He needs to be witty and almost cheerful to overcome the upsetting feelings, which the other poets show more clearly.
This angry tone can also be seen in ‘Nothing's Changed’,
‘name flaring like a flag’
His anger is expressed like a flag. This can be seen as a red piece of cloth set up and ready for an angry bull to come charging in to it. He is angry because even though apartheid had been legally abolished, he still feels like it is the same cruel environment,
‘No sign says it is:
but we know where we belong.’
The poet is saying that even though the white population is supposed to be treating the black population fairly, he can feel in his bones that it is still the same. He can feel it because he has developed instincts through of years of racism. The poet also describes to us how awful he feels by using unpleasant words,
‘it squats’.
When I read these words, urinating comes to mind, which isn’t a pleasant image. This shows how unpleasant it is for him too. Even though he feels like this, he continues to hope that in the future, things will finally change and he will feel that something has changed in the world.
Although ‘Half-Caste’ and ‘Nothing's Changed’ contain a slight angry tone, I can’t see this anger in ‘Search For My Tongue’ and Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’. The poet in ‘Search For My Tongue’ may feel slightly angry but only with herself. She is angry with herself because she believes that she has let her native language down and that it is her fault. The poet feels ashamed,
‘I thought I spit it out’.
She wants to ‘spit out’ the ‘rotted’ language because she feels that she has ruined it and that it would never return.
The tone of ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’ is not angry or deeply upset but more confused,
‘of no fixed nationality’.
The poet is confused because she doesn’t know where she truly belongs, Britain or Pakistan. She feels like she is in limbo. The poem also shows that her family, especially the aunts in Pakistan are trying to sway her decision as to which culture she should truly belong to,
‘My aunts chose an apple-green sari,
silver-boarded
for my teens.’
This shows that the aunts are controlling what she wears even if she disagrees. They are trying to decide what culture she should belong to even if the girl doesn’t want to follow it.
Cultural language is very noticeable in both ‘Half-Caste’ and ‘Search For My Tongue’. In ‘Half-Caste’ the poet has decided to use Pidgin English,
‘wha yu mean’.
I think he has done this to prove that he is different but he doesn’t want to change anyway. He has also done it to rebel. He believes that it is the English population who are discriminating him. By not using slandered English, he is attacking the formality of English that we have. Another way that the poet is doing this is by deliberately not including punctuation. I think this is because Standard English should always contain punctuation, especially in a poem, and therefore he is again attacking the formality of English that we have. Another way of how he does this is when he talks about the English weather,
‘engalnd weather
nearly always half-caste’.
He is insulting the English background to rebel against them.
‘Search For My Tongue’ also includes cultural language. In this case it is not throughout the poem but just a particular section in the middle of the poem. The poet decides to use phonetics in her original language of Gujarati. She does this because she wants us to realise what it must be like for her to not understand a language that you need to comprehend the poem, or in her case, to comprehend the people around her. This cultural language is how the language in ‘Half-Caste’ and ‘Search For My Tongue’ can be compared.
‘Half-Caste’ contains a lot of repetition of the words,
‘Explain yuself’.
This is because the poet wants to, in an aggressive tone, put across that if you are going to call him ‘half-caste’ then they must explain what exactly that means. He wants to say this because he believes that the term ‘half-caste’ is not a name that human beings should be called. Therefore if they are going to say it then they should have the courage to explain to him what they are referring to; and even if he is of mixed race, it doesn’t mean he is utterly diverse inside.
Another comparison between ‘Half-Caste’ and ‘Search For My Tongue’ is that the two poems are both free versification. ‘Half-Caste’ is presented like this because it is again attacking the formality of English that we have. He is rebelling because he believes that it is the English who are discriminating him. It is also because his feelings towards this are all mixed up and he just wants to express all this in a loud, open way. ‘Search For My Tongue’ however is presented like this because the whole poem is basically the poet’s mixture of thoughts and feelings about the loss and gain of her language.
None of these poems rhyme. I think this is because the poem’s initial purposes are not to entertain you but to put across the poet’s feelings without having to omit things to make the poem more engaging. However there is a section in ‘Nothing's Changed’ that does rhyme,
‘in the grass and weeds,
incipient Port Jackson trees:
new, up-market, haute cuisine’.
I imagine that the poet has made only this part rhyme so that it will be noticeable. As it is describing the ‘up-market’ area of this place, the poet may have made it rhyme to make it sound more sophisticated to put across that the white people who live in this area are commonly portrayed as the superior and more refined race.
In these poems the poets are all celebrating something. This thing is usually their roots or cultural identity.
The poet in ‘Half-Caste’ celebrates his language. He does this by using Pidgin English, uses no punctuation and has made sure that it is free versification. He is not afraid to speak his mind or language because he is proud of it. Another way in which he celebrates is by mentioning western icons,
‘yu mean when picasso’, and
‘yu mean tchaikovsky’.
He includes these people because he wants to celebrate people who are different. The poet is celebrating whom he is and that he is a full, pure person no matter what other people say.
As in ‘Half-Caste’ the poet in ‘Search For My Tongue’ wants to celebrate her language. She does this by using her original language in the middle of the poem, and also the way that she describes the language returning and progressing in the form of a beautiful flower. The poet is also celebrating her roots and her cultural identity. She celebrates how important it is to her and that she must not lose it as it would be awful.
Unlike the previous two poems, the poet in ‘Nothing's Changed’ is not as enthusiastic about celebrating his roots or cultural identity. He is proud of his identity but he won’t stand up to the people around him who are discriminating him, as that is not in his nature.
In ‘Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan’ the poet is celebrating her Asian roots. She does this by describing the traditional clothes from her birthplace in such a way that you can visualise how beautiful and exotic the garments really are. Even though she celebrates this she also wants to be able to feel the same way about her new home in Britain. Even though she says she is,
‘of no fixed nationality’,
the poet still knows in her heart that she wants to celebrate and be proud of her roots in Pakistan.
From reading and understanding the four poems, I have learnt that people from ethnic backgrounds can face terrible hardship and that even after large amounts of discrimination drilled into their heads, they still feel proud of their roots and identity. However I have also learnt that by having their roots discriminated against, losing their roots or even not knowing what exactly their roots are, can deeply sadden the people and make them irritated. People react differently to these and we should acknowledge that to make people in situations like those in the poems to feel happier and at ease with themselves.
