Katie Hicks
Compare the way the writers of ‘In Paris with you’ and ‘Praise song for my mother’ make use of repetition.
In Paris with You is a poem about love and regret. Paris, a city traditionally associated with love and romance, is the poem’s setting but Fenton substitutes the clichés of love poetry with the description of two people in a neglected hotel room. The person describes the lover, the room and his confused emotions. The poem has a light hearted but also intense tone. Praise songs reflect an African tradition and are written to celebrate the lives of the people they are written about. Praise Song for My Mother is based on Grace Nichols’ childhood memories of her mother. In the poem Nichols celebrates her own mother. In Praise Song for My Mother, Nichols describes her mother as “deep and bold and fathoming”
Although Paris is often thought of as the city of love, James Fenton opens his poem “In Paris with You” with the sentence “Don't talk to me of love.” The speaker seems to be getting over a broken relationship, saying “I've had an earful and I get tearful.” Rather than both words of the rhyming pair coming at the end of lines, “tearful” is in the middle of the second line. The rhymes seem to give a lighter atmosphere to the first stanza, although the speaker is feeling down. Fenton describes him as “one of your talking wounded,” which of course is a play on the phrase “walking wounded” used to describe people who have only slight injuries. Fenton refers to him as “a hostage” and says he is “marooned,” creating the impression of someone who is not yet free from the emotions of his recent relationship. In the last line of the stanza, however, the speaker seems to be feeling more optimistic when he says “But I’m in Paris with you.” Throughout the poem, the speaker talks directly to the person he has just met.
