'Choose two or three poems which deal in some way with the experience of moving between different cultures and show how this is explained through language and imagery.'

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English Coursework

‘Choose two or three poems which deal in some way with the experience of moving between different cultures and show how this is explained through language and imagery.’

For my essay I will be looking at two poems which deal with the experience of moving between different cultures, these are Half-Caste and Search for My Tongue.  These poems are written from experience.  John Agard the author of Half-Caste was born in Gugana and moved to Britain in 1977.  He is half-caste himself and his poem expresses his feelings about the term half-caste.

Sujata Bhatt the authoress of Search for My Tongue was born in India in 1956, her family moved to the United States of America in the 1960’s and she now lives in Germany.  In her poem Search for My Tongue she explains how she feels about having two different languages her birth language, Gujerati and her second language, German.

Half-Caste and Search for My Tongue, create very vivid images, which makes it easier for the reader to interpret and understand both the poems and the authors’ opinion on the different cultures.  

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Half- Caste creates many images, by using descriptive language and humour.  It creates such images as a man, ‘standing on leg’ and having ‘half mih ear’ because he is only half-caste so he only has half what a normal person would have but it also creates images about objects ‘mix a red an green is a half-caste canvas’ and even music ‘mix a black key wid a white key is a half-caste symphony’.  This helps the reader to understand how the author is feeling about the term half-caste, and can also come to a conclusion about the term themselves. ...

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