Looking at both "Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan" and "Search For My Tongue", there is a similarity between the poems because both poets have a shared experience of living between two cultures and these experiences led to the writing of the two poems.

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Hayley Chadwick.

Different Cultures Poetry Assignment.

Looking at both “Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan” and “Search For My Tongue”, there is a similarity between the poems because both poets have a shared experience of living between two cultures and these experiences led to the writing of the two poems.

Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1954 and was brought to England when she was only a few months old. Her Father was from Pakistan and her Mother was English. Alvi has said, “I never feel at entirely at home in England, and of course I’m not part of the Asian community.” Alvi doesn’t feel she belongs to any culture “Of no fixed nationality” and she writes about her own feelings in her poem Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan. Whereas Sujata Bhatt was born in India in 1956 and left for America at 12 years old where she was forced to speak another language and experienced a loss of culture, she has two ways of life and she fears she is losing her Indian way- she shows her feelings about this in her poem Search For My Tongue.

In Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan, the first fifteens lines describe some presents sent to Alvi when she was a girl living in England which are two salwar kameez which are both bright and colourful, embossed slippers which are gold and black which shows signs of richness and wealth, an apple green sari which was silver bordered which shows freshness and how beautiful the clothes were. She also got delicate jewellery and “Candy-striped glass bangles, snapped, drew blood.”  They hurt her, which shows Pakistan culture is painful to her.

She describes her feelings towards the clothes “I tried each satin-silken top- was alien in the sitting room. I could never be as lovely as those clothes.” By using the word “alien” shows she doesn’t belong to this culture, she can’t wear them because it doesn’t feel right, they’re too beautiful and it’s not her at all.

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“I longed for denim and corduroy” She longs to be English; she admires our culture but can’t have it.

“My costume clung to me and I was aflame” She’s acting by describing it as a “costume” and she’s dressing up when she wears it, it’s not how she likes to dress.

“My mother cherished her jewellery- Indian gold, dangling, filigree. But it was stolen from our car.” It doesn’t belong there.

“The presents were radiant in my wardrobe.” They’re vibrant and very beautiful unlike “My Aunts requested cardigans from Marks and Spencer.” It makes England sound boring and not sophisticated.

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