Tom Leonard, in Unrelated Incidents, has written the whole poem as a phonetic transcript, the whole poem is written as it sounds when spoken. This shows his confidence in showing off his identity, showing his pride in being a part of his culture. This is emphasised by the fact that he uses his own dialectical words and phrases. This is made clear when he addresses the reader by calling them “scruff” repeatedly throughout the poem and at the end of the poem, the two word sentence “belt up”.
Sujata Bhatt, in Search for My Tongue, has written the poem as a phonetic transcript too but not necessarily the whole poem like Unrelated Incidents by Tom Leonard. At the heart of the poem, the Gujarati script has been aided by an English phonetic transcript. Unlike Unrelated Incidents, it is only the heart of the poem, her dream, which has been written in a phonetic transcript. Being at the heart of the poem emphasises the fact that her mother tongue is close to her. Her confidence of being a part of her culture is emphasised by the fact that she has physically written her mother tongue at the heart of the poem, Gujarati script. She clearly is not shy of writing down Gujarati script, even with her experience of alienation.
Both Tom Leonard and Sujata Bhatt’s poems literally capture the reader’s attention by directly addressing them and stand their ground, defending what they are trying to say.
Tom Leonard addresses the reader directly by referring to them as “scruff” in Unrelated Incidents. People would call the speaker a “scruff” because of his accent but he’s calling the reader a “scruff” because of their accent, being very ironic, standing his ground and defending against how people would judge him by his accent. He continuously challenges the reader throughout the poem by referring to the truth, challenging what people mean by the truth. This clear once he says, “this is ma trooth yooz doant no thi trooth”. The speaker’s showing that the truth to him is that all accents are equal but other people may not agree. The idea of the speaker standing his ground is emphasised by the two word sentence ending the poem, “belt up”. He is clearly challenging authority by telling them to shut up, but in his own dialect, showing power, confidence and pride in his identity.
In Search for My Tongue too, Sujata Bhatt addresses the reader directly too, also standing her ground. The beginning of the poem consists of first and second person. She addresses the reader relentlessly and repeatedly throughout the poem with the use of second person. The start of the poem is written in the first person so that the reader can empathise with her feelings of struggle and difficulty. She challenges the reader, portraying the message of struggle between two languages. This is made obvious by her disturbing image of disgust, “what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth.” Her struggle and difficulty is emphasised by the hard-hitting consonants of words, “would”, “had” and “could”.
Both poets, Tom Leonard and Sujata Bhatt, have shaped the poem in different ways to convey different meanings.
Tom Leonard has shaped Unrelated Incidents very thin and narrow, identical to an autocue, with the character being a news reader. Additionally, the shape of the poem conveys the narrow mind of people who judged people by their accents. This, again, emphasises the idea of the speaker defending and standing his ground, challenging the reader, showing power, showing pride in his identity.
On the other hand, Sujata Bhatt has shaped Search for My Tongue in a way where the lines reach out, rather than being very isolated like in Unrelated Incidents. This shows an image of growth, the image of her mother tongue dominating her foreign tongue, showing pride in her identity.
