poetry essay

Nazey kurt 11v

Poetry essay

In my essay, I am going to write about the language, structure and content of six poems to show how the writers use a variety of techniques to express their feelings and ideas about their cultures. The two poems I will write about in detail are half caste and presents from my aunts in Pakistan. The two poems I will write about in less detail are search for my tongue and not my business. The two poems I will mention are unrelated incidents and hurricane hits England.

First, I will write about the content of the poems.

The first poem I will be analysing is half caste. Half caste is a derogatory term meaning mixed race and it has a bad meaning. In the poem John Agard describes the different meanings the term half-caste can have. This is when he says that “just because I’m mixed race does it mean I’m half a person. This suggests that he doesn’t really know the meaning of half caste. He says “England weather nearly always half caste in fact some o dem cloud half caste till dem overcast so spiteful dem don’t want de sun pass”. He says this because sometimes the English weather is cloudy and sometimes it is warm and sunny. This is because the English weather is mixed and not very reliable. Picasso is a famous artist. Tchaikovsky is a pianist. Agard mentions them because if Picasso mixes red and green it is a half caste canvas and if Tchaikovsky mixes a black key with a white key it is a half caste symphony. He is trying to balance the colours with races. The main message of the poem is for Agard to show he is a half caste and to compare himself with different colours to explain which race he is from. I think that the poet is effective in putting forward his views about race, culture and identity because he compares himself with black and white people.

However, presents from my aunts in Pakistan is a poem about a young girl of mixed race and the difficulty of adapting to two different cultures. She is trying to explain how hard it is to carry on her life with two tongues at once this shows that it is something impossible to learn. The phrase "no fixed nationality" sums up the feelings of the girl, being "half-English" and “half Pakistani” she struggles to feel comfortable with either culture. We can easily realise that she doesn't know where she belongs. Pakistan is a country where she no longer feels a part of that culture and there is a sense of confusion with regard to her nationality. She explains her feeings in line number eighteen when she says "I could never be lovely as those clothes". This line shows how much she likes the clothes sent from her aunts in Pakistan and she also shows the happiness she felt from sending her beautiful clothes from her aunts in Pakistan although she was not in the position to wear them on. However, she also feels the embarresment of her culture to her friends when she says “my salwar kameez didn’t impress the schoolfriend”. This indicates that items that would be seem as valuable in one culture would be seen differently in another culture. A salwar Kameez is a pakistani trouser suit.

The third poem is search for my tongue which explains the difficulty of having two tonugues. One language is English and the other Gujerati. However, I think that having a mixed cultural background could be an advantage because if you lived in one culture, and moved to the other you wouldn't forget parts of the other as quickly as you would then if you only had one culture because you would be used to having two in your life. The message delivered from search for my tongue is that it is trying to say it is easy to forget a ...

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On the other hand, the fourth poem not my business is trying to say that she doesn’t care about what happens to others and this means that she only cares for herself and she only wants to be good herself. In the poem it tells us that people get beaten up and she doesn’t really try and help them until the same thing happens to her. The theme of the poem is a theme of responsibility. By the end of the poem, Osundare’s message is if you don’t stick up for yourself then who is there to stick up for you. In line 3 and 4 it says "stuffed him down the belly of a waiting jeep." The person in the poem is very selfish because even though her friend is punished she just sits at his table eating, until they come for her. We know that she is selfish because at the end of a stanza she always mentions, "What business of mine is it so long they don’t take away the yam”. A yam is a type of food. The poet refers to them as 'they' which makes them seem a large group of people. They beat him and then take him away in the jeep.

The fifth poem is unrelated incidents which is spoken by a BBC newsreader. He explains why the BBC thinks it is important to read the news in a BBC accent. The poet is rebelling against the English language. The poet also stresses on the use of the local accent. He thinks that his way of speaking is right and how others speak is wrong because he makes use of the word “scruff”. The effect that hearing the news read In a BBC accent have on the poet is that he gets angry because they speak posh and he feels no one speaks like him. He says that he is proud about his culture because the text is written in a scottish accent.

In contrast, hurricane hits England is about a women from the carribean being freed by the hurricane in uk.

Next, I will then write about the language techiques used by the poet to show his ideas and feelings about his culture and identity.

The language techniques used in half caste is that throughout the poem, Agard uses repitition. One phrase that is repeated several times is “explain yuself”. This shows that he doesn’t understand the word half caste and he wants an explanation. Agard uses a strong carribean dialect this relates to which social class he belongs to. We can easily tell that he is from a middle class family because the way he speaks is’t that bad as working class speaking.

However, The language techniques used in presents from my aunts in Pakistan is the repitition of “I”. This suggests the poem tells of a personal exploration of identity. There is no rhyming what so ever In this poem. The tone of is very calm all the way through.

The language techniques used in search for my tongue is the use of “I” and “you”. The poet uses first and second person which makes the poem personal because it’s like speaking to you directly and to make sure that you are involved. It is also as if they are talking to you like you have asked them a question.

She tries to compare her mother country when she explains the imagery of plants growing with her mother tonugue. It effects the reading of the reader to have words and phrases to do with tongue/tongues all the way through the poem because it tries to focus the reader to the poem. In the middle of the poem, Bhatt includes her Gujerati language written phonetically so that non-Gujerati speakers can read it aloud. This is to make the reader confused. The tone at the beginning is very aggressive. "You ask me what I mean." About half-way through the poem, the poet's voice starts speaking in Gujarati, this language is part of her life and she is confused by it. It also uses very poetic language throughout the poem especially in lines 31-38, where it uses a lot of metaphors. The author engages the reader by asking a rhetorical question: "I ask you, what you would do, if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue." This makes the reader question themselves of losing their mother tongue and developing a foreign tongue.

However, the language feautres used in not my business is that the writer uses personification in lines 3-4 in the first stanza: "stuffed him down the belly of the waiting jeep". By using personification, the reader gets a image of the jeep becoming something evil waiting for the victims to take away. It also uses a range of similes and one is in the first stanza when he says “soft like clay” this shows that they are beating the person very hard to make it as soft as clay. Lastly, he makes use of rhetorical questions when he says “from my savouring mouth” This is to make the reader think and understand what he is trying to say.

The langauge techniques used in unrelated incidents is that the tone is very loose and easy. Leonard believes that ideas, attitudes and values are linked. He manages to create this tone by not speaking 'proper' English. There is a constant, third person voice throughout. The poet has played with language in a number of ways, apart from the phonetic spelling. There is almost no punctuation. There is also no use of any capital letters.

However, the language techniques used in hurricane hits England is that she makes use of similies when she says “even as you short”. The second one is when she uses a rhetorical question when she says “an english coast?”

Finally, I will write about he structure of the poems to show how the poets show their feelings about their identities. In half caste, the poem is sructred in five stanzas with short lines to show that Agard is angry. This is because he wants to show he is a mixed race person. The tone in each stazna is ironic. The tone changes throughout the poem. He also uses caribbean dialect which makes us realise that he is a mixed race person. The use of phonetic writing is very effective as it is written in a system that uses a unique symbol to represent each sound of the language or dialect.

Meanwhile, the poem presents from my aunts in Pakistan is written in which means it has no rhyme. The words are arranged loosely across the page. It is divided into of changing length.

However, the poem not my business is structured into 4 stanzas. Which is laid out in a much fractured way, with no organised pattern to the lines. This unusual layout represents the “fractured” identity of the narrator, who doesn’t know where she is from. There is also lots of stop/start punctuation in the poem. There are a lot of dashes as well as commas and full stops. This stop/start feel created by the punctuation adds to the uncertainly the poet feels about her identity. Each verse has an indented chorus.

The poem search for my tongue has 7 lines of Gujarati in the middle of the peom translated into English.

Unrelated incidents is carefully written in a phonetic version of Scottish accent.

However, the poem hurricane hits England is structured in an irregular shape which represents the hurricane.