Different Cultures: Cluster 2 Essay.

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Different Cultures: Cluster 2 Essay.

The two poems I am to compare are Grace Nichols “Hurricane Hits England” a poem that shows that the whole world is one world and how a storm reminds a Caribbean woman of home. The author obviously misses her home country and feels it in the storm which she wrote about, the violence of the storm is harsh and causes some damage. The second poem, with which I will be comparing “Hurricane...” is Niyi Osundare’s “Not my Business”. This poem describes the violent and horrific nature in which the Nigerian Government treated those people who disagreed with the state.  It describes the pain and suffering they forced upon these people and how the pain and suffering is then brought to the narrator.

        This poem is about shared responsibilities and the way that tyranny grows if no one opposes it. It is composed, simply, of three stories about victims of the oppressors, followed by the experience of the speaker in the poem, in which he has not done anything, but the fact that he knows makes him a target. The poet is Nigerian but the situation in the poem could be from many countries, there are words used like “yam”, and the names of the people which tell you this. The poem echoes, in its four parts, a statement by Pastor Martin Niemöller, who opposed the Nazis. Speaking later to many audiences he would conclude with these words, more or less:

“First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.”

        In “Hurricane...” the central image is not the poet's invention but drawn from her, and I’m sure other people’s experience. The hurricanes that sometimes strike England as destructive storms really do bring the Caribbean, and the weather and climate, to Britain - they retrace the poet's journey from the west, and recall her own origins.

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        The wind travels across the sea to find her new home and remind her of her old home. The wind is referred to as a “howling ship.” This encourages the notion that it has travelled to find her. The word “howling” is onomatopoeia and adds to the atmospheric depth of the phrase and really makes the storm seem dark and mysterious.

        The poem begins in the third person but changes in the second stanza to a first-person view as the poet speaks of herself, and addresses the tropical winds, this tells you of how violent the storm becomes with ...

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