(2 / 10)
The poet felt nostalgic for the whole scene. The sheets are graphically described with all the posters covering the walls such as “banners for Miss India 1993”. A high beat of music is detected in the alliterations “curtain cloth and sofa cloth canopy me “.
The process of hennaing takes a long time. We have a contrast between “the furious streets” at first, and how they turned calm and “hushed” as the night advanced. Here we have a very elaborate personification.
As the poet describes to us how the henna picture “will fade in a week” this is symbolic to memories which fade away. We have a note of sadness here as she felt nostalgic for the magic – like memory and as she wished it would never go away.
Yet, unfortunately, every thing is sulyict to fading away and dying out.
The poet ends her poem with nostalgia showing us how she will always seek this exciting and intriguing memory whenever she reads about India in the papers.
An interesting poem with an interesting message. In our lives we encounter strange and memorable experiences which we nostalgically seek from time to time.
(3 /10)
The second poem of my choice about the theme of nostalgia is “Piano” by D. H. Lawrence. Lawrence here is nostalgic for his childhood years when he used to enjoy a happy and peaceful kind of life. A poem about the magical time of childhood and the enchanting world of music. The poet wrote this poem after being inspired by the lovely song of a woman.
The poet starts his poem by describing an action at the present time “softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me”. Right away he draws before us a wonderful picture with all its graphic details. We feel his nostalgia as we are transferred with him to the magic world of song and music. He gives us a relaxing mood by using words such as “softly”, “dusk” and “singing”. The sensuous poet succeeds in making us see the picture with him and hear the gorgeous song engaging both our sense of sight and that of hearing.
The poet felt nostalgic as the song of the lady seemed to transfer him to the enchanting world of childhood. “Taking me back down the vista of years”. We are softly taken with him to the roads and pathways of the past engraved in his memory.
Similarly, in Moniza Alvi’s Poem, she transfers us to the Indian bazaar for which she is nostalgic.
(4 / 10)
Lawrence shows us how he was fascinated as a child by the magical sound of music: “till I see a child sitting under the piano”. The sensuous poet engages our sense of hearing to the utmost extent by his usage of words as “boom” and “tingling”. He tries to convey to us the echoing sound of music all around him as a child and how he was marveled in relishing it. The onomatopoeia in “boom” is quite impressive making us hear the musical echo with him. The sensuous poet here makes full use of the auditory images.
Similarly, “An Unknown Girl” reveals to us how its poet is sensuous engaging our sense of hearing with her use of remarkable auditory images such as the alliteration in “ hennaing my hand “ adding music of nostalgia and “ stare with their western perms adding eerie music to the poem.
Lawrence is immersed in nostalgia as he describes his childhood memories with graphic details. Still the effect is very delicate and evokes all relaxation and pleasure in us. We almost see his lovely mother “pressing” her “small, poised feet” on the lower parts of the piano. When we are informed that she “smiles as she sings” we again feel the poet’s nostalgia for happy family life.
(5 / 10)
The second stanza in “Piano” starts with the words “In spite of myself” to give us the impression that the lovely song overwhelmed him and made him a slave of its beautiful notes. A very effective personification is used here as we are told that the song had an “insidious mastery” over him. Effective personifications are also used in Alvi’s poem. For example, we have an elaborate personification in “Now the furious streets are hushed”.
Laurence uses an effective alliteration in his words “Betrays me back” adding soft music of nostalgia and of yearning to his early childhood days. Now the poet is dying for his childhood days, he craves for them. He uses here a very elaborate personification showing us how “the heart” of him “weeps to belong to the old Sunday evenings at home”. Here, we detect a religious touch which is absent in “An Unknown Girl”.
Contrast is detected in both poems. In “Piano” he recalls the “winter outside” as contrasted to “the cosy parlour inside” In the same way contrast is present in Alvi’s poem as we have a description of “the furious streets” which later on, became “hushed”.
(6 / 10)
In the third stanza in “Piano” the poet informs us that all the present time the singer’s efforts to attract his attention are in “vain” as he is a captive of the world of the past and his childhood memories. In the same way Alvi become a captive of her past memories. She assures us that when she sees pictures of India in newspapers she will remember the Indian bazaar with her strange experiences over there:
“When India appears and reappears
I’ll Lean across a country
With my hands outstretched
Longing for the unknown girl
In the neon bazaar”.
Now we move to the third poem of my choice which is “Half Past Two” by U. A. Fanthorpe. It is a poem about nostalgia for the world of childhood with its magic and fantasies. The poet transfers us to our childhood to live through it and enjoy it once more.
The title of the poem is misleading and shows nothing about the subject matter of the poem itself. In this it is similar to the title of “Piano” and unlike “An Unknown Girl” which is a relevant title.
(7 / 10)
The poet, Fanthorpe, starts the poem in a story – telling way “Once upon a schooltime” even the language she uses is very childish “he did something very wrong”. He even forgot “what it was”. Childish language is not used in the other two poems.
Fanthorpe then refers to a negative side in the world of childhood which is doing something wrong and being punished for it. We felt the boy’s feelings of regret as he made his teacher “cross” or angry. Suffering is also detected in “Piano” as Lawrence suffered while missing his childhood days.
We have a touch of humour in Fanthorpe’s use of words such as the categories of time for the little child, as, for example “Timeformykisstime” and “Timetogohomenow time”. On the other hand, the two other poems are devoid of humour.
Fanthorpe gives us an elaborate personification as he describes the clock with its “little eyes and two long legs for walking”. There are also personifications in Moniza Alvi’s poem such as the personification in “dummies in the shop – fronts / tilt and stare”.
“Piano” also involves personifications such as “the heart of me weeps to belong to the old Sunday evenings at home”.
(8 / 10)
As we are told in “Half Past Two” that the boy got “Out of reach of all time” we felt here that the world of childhood means going to the word of fantasy and imagination where a child changes his interest quickly from one moment to the next.
The little boy forget all about his misdeed and punishment and concentrated only on “the smell of old chrysanthemums” an the teacher’s desk. Here the poet is quite sensuous engaging our sense of smell beside our sense of sight. Her words “the silent noise his hangnail made” add sense of hearing to the picture. We pity the poor little boy in his ordeal as he wished for freedom and for escaping “into the air outside the window”.
The other two poets are also sensuous. Hardy engages our sense of hearing as he outstates “Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me”.
While, Moniza Alvi is also sensuous engaging our sense of touch through expressions like “on her satin – peach knee”.
The poet in “Half Past Two” is nostalgic for the world of imagination during childhood. Hardy is nostalgic for his happy childhood and peaceful family life. Alvi is nostalgic for the Indian bazaar and the intrigue she felt there.
(9 /10)
When the teacher urged the boy to go home, he shifted from the zone of imagination to the zone of the reality.
Similarly, in Hardy’s poem, he shifts us from his stage of adulthood to his childhood and back once more to his adulthood.
Fanthorpe’s poem transferred us to the world of fantasy and imagination. The boy yearned for the land of forgetfulness and “the clocklessl and of ever” where children escape from reality to illusion i.e. To the word of magic where time is “tickless waiting to be born”.
The above mentioned three poems are about the theme of nostalgia. I have enjoyed them immensely and I consider them really memorable.
(10 / 10)