West Indian carpenter - What the poem is about.

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What the poem is about

  • The poem describes the workshop and daily life of a highly skilled West Indian carpenter (lines 1-20).
  • His livelihood is threatened by imported steel and formica furniture (lines 21-26).
  • On Sundays, the carpenter becomes a sculptor, carving out of his imagination wooden figures which resemble the effigies of old African gods (lines 27-47).
  • He is reminded of Africa and feels anger.

How the poem is written

Structure and sound

The poem is arranged in couplets (pairs of lines), but there isn't a regular pattern to these couplets. The line endings don't always come where we would expect them. The sense seems to 'cut' suddenly from one line to the next:

The knuckles of his hands were sil-/ vered knobs of nails hit, hurt and flat-/ tened out with blast of heavy hammer.

This creates a kind of unpredictability in the movement of the lines. It makes us read them more tentatively. We have to find our way through the poem. What does this suggest about the carpenter?

The poem is full of sounds:

  • Make a list of all the alliteration you can find in the poem. What's the effect?

'it shone like his short-sighted glasses' (line 4)

'nails hit, hurt' (line 6)

Can you hear the sound of the plane gliding over the wood and the harsh banging of the hammer?

  • There is some repetition of sounds in the poem too:

'dug out / wood out' (lines 1-2)

'hurt and flat- / knock-knee'd, flat-' (line 6-7)

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'rat tat tat' (line 14)

Look for other examples. How does this remind us of a carpenter's shop?

How should the poem be read aloud? Which ideas do you think should come across most strongly?

  • Fondly - the poet greatly admires his uncle and his work?
  • Angrily - the poet feels the same anger as his uncle did when he remembers the suffering his people have endured?
  • Hopefully - the process of carving is a positive way to cope with the past?

Remind yourself who Ogun is - see the footnote above. Do you think that ...

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