The poem Search for my Tongue, written by Indian born author Sajata Bhatt, is about a girl who is worried she is forgetting her mother tongue.
"Search for my Tongue" The poem "Search for my Tongue", written by Indian born author Sajata Bhatt, is about a girl who is worried she is forgetting her mother tongue. In my opinion, the poet wrote the poem to try and help people understand the difficulty of speaking two languages. I think she is trying to get across the message that you will never loose something that is such a big part of who you are. There are different emotions throughout the poem. At first, the girl feels confused and sad, as she is scared of losing her native language of Indian: "...and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other". Towards the middle, the girl speaks quite angrily and fiercely: "rot and die in your mouth, until you had to spit it out", using negative words such as "rot" and "die". This could be because she is frustrated with herself for not practicing the Indian language, and therefore feeling like she has forgotten it. However, at the end of the poem, the girl realises that she dreams in Indian, and so has not lost her mother tongue: "the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth". She is full of joy, and is much more confident. This time she uses happier words, like "blossoms". With all these different emotions, I think the poet is trying to get the reader to feel the confusion the girl is going through. There are no stanzas or rhyme in the poem (which
In both Search for my Tongue by Sujata Bhatt and Half Caste by John Agard strong imagery is used to present ideas and feelings, mainly those of identity.
In both Search for my Tongue by Sujata Bhatt and Half Caste by John Agard strong imagery is used to present ideas and feelings, mainly those of identity. Both poets use metaphors to show their feelings towards the aspect of their identity in which they feel strongly about. Search for my Tongue as a whole is an extended metaphor for the persona re finding her language and identity. Negative imagery is very apparent in the first stanza; the author uses metaphors to present that the persona feels she is forgetting her home language. "mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth" The metaphor 'mother tongue' is used to symbolize the first language of the persona. Personally, I think the use of [the adjective] 'mother' is very apparent as a person's mother is usually of great importance to them and the persona is comparing her language and identity to how one would feel about their parents: irreplaceable. In contrast, the third stanza of this poem is very positive. Imagery like "the bud opens in my mouth" is used to represent that her first language is re-growing and blossoming within her. The persona realises that no matter where she lives or what language she speaks, her identity will always remain the same. Metaphors are used differently in Half Caste; Agard uses imagery of mixed things and shows them as beautiful while comparing them to mixed race people