First of all the poem ‘Blessing’ is a poem that shows the feeling of someone seeing towns people suffer because there is no water for them near by. He describes what it is to be like there and how the people feel. She also shows that the water is very precious to them. She says that water is like silver and that it’s a gift from god. In my thoughts from what I now of people in poverty in the south west Asian area, it seems to me that the people are so pious because the women have to walk distances to get to a river or a well and they also have to carry big heavy pots on their heads. I know that they carry heavy pots because the poem says ‘pots made from brass and copper and aluminium’.
In addition ‘PFPK’ has a similar view but it shows how the narrator feels about herself and how her culture is affecting her lifestyle. She receives some of the finest clothes and jewellery from her relatives in Pakistan The narrator describes the gifts as she receives them from Pakistan, as being very beautiful, but she doesn’t feel comfortable wearing them because she’s too modern and English. In the poem she also compares her every day clothes like denims and corduroys with the sari. She states that she feels more comfortable although she know they aren’t as beautiful as the Pakistani suit. By the end of the poem she takes her self back to Pakistan by describing what it would be like if she were there now by looking at her old photos. She concludes the poem as what it is like to be like to be cut off.
Further more the poem is structured in a different way compared to the other poem. The poem ‘Blessing’ has 4 stanzas; in each stanza she explains what it is like to see some one suffering. The first part of the poem contains a few full stops because it is talking about what water and what it means to the villagers. She has done this because she wants to explain what is happening in the village. In the second half of the poem there aren’t any stops because she wants to get the words out to the people and show how emotional his thoughts are. She talks about the suffering and how they feel about the lack of water. The shorter verses are significantly different from the longer ones. The short ones express what it is like not to have water. The longer ones convey what it is like to have water. The poem also contains some rhythm; rhyming words, alliteration and onomatopoeia. There are 2 parts of rhymes in the poem like ‘pod’ and ‘god’ as well as ‘found’, ground and’ around’. These words are effective because they show that the poem has a rhythm and in the poem it finishes off the sentence. The alliteration in the poem is there so it stands out, ‘polished to perfection’ as ‘flow has found’. There is alliteration there to make the word after stand out. When the writer talks about the water she uses bits of onomatopoeia like ‘rush, burst, crash and roar’. These words are close to each other in the first half of the poem because they describe the water. In this part of poem and it contains mixed pattern of syllables in each line. The poem is very short as well because it wants to concentrate on one thing and wants the reader to feel it. In the poem there are also metaphors, e.g.: ‘the voice of a kindly god’ and ‘silver crashes to the ground’. These bits of metaphors are used to express her feelings, where she is recalling out that water is like money in India.
On the other hand the ‘PFPK’ has 8 stanzas, which are written in a free verse. Every stanza gives you a different image; they are like paragraphs loosened out. It is in a free verse so she can emphasise her feeling and experience. Another way that makes it like a paragraph is that it contains some commas and then a full stop to finish the sentence. The girl talks about what she comes in contact with by using linguistic devices, like a mixture of adjectives and alliteration. To emphasise her comments, the writer starts a new line to get the readers attention. She also uses adjectives to describe her thoughts and alliteration to do the same, like ‘consider the cruelty’ this has been written like this so it can bring out the words to us. The writer hasn’t added any rhymes because she just wants to get the fact about how she feels. This also slows down the poem so we concentrate on it more. The poem also contains some metaphors and similes. She mainly uses similes to describe her self to other objects.’ Was alien in the sitting room’ and ‘my costume clung to me and I was a flame’. The metaphors in the poem like, ‘I couldn’t rise out of its fire’ and ‘marvel the colours like stained glass’. These bits of language are here to describe the thoughts of the poet and to make the reader understand what she is bringing out.
More over the poems try to get a different message to us. In ‘BLESSING’ the poet tries to remind us on how other countries that are in poverty. However ‘PFPK’ shows us what it feels like to be away from a home country and what you miss out.
In conclusion think blessing is a better poem because it uses a lot of linguistic devices and because it is short, since it is short the message gets to us easily. The poem also is here to show us what life is like in another place ‘PFPK’ is ok but is a long poem that tells us how one feels about missing their home country. According to me this just show the life story of a girl, where you will have your own thought.
The end
Kashif Hussein
