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
Search for My Tongue Sujata Bhatt Possible themes: Identity; Living between two cultures; Language; Race.
Search for My Tongue - Sujata Bhatt You ask me what I mean by saying I have lost my tongue. I ask you, what would you do if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue. You could not use them both together even if you thought that way. And if you lived in a place you had to speak a foreign tongue, your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth until you had to spit it out. I thought I spit it out but overnight while I dream, (munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha) (may thoonky nakhi chay) (parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay) (foolnee jaim mari bhasha nmari jeebh) (modhama kheelay chay) (fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh) (modhama pakay chay) it grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins, it ties the other tongue in knots, the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth, it pushes the other tongue aside. Everytime I think I've forgotten, I think I've lost the mother tongue, it blossoms out of my mouth. Search for My Tongue - Sujata Bhatt Possible themes: Identity; Living between two cultures; Language; Race. Facts Quotes/facts Explanation/effects Content . The poet writes about losing her tongue = forgetting how to speak her Mother tongue. 2. But then, as she dreams, her mother tongue
How does Sujata Bhatt show that identity is important in Serch for my tongue? Compare the methods she uses with another poet uses to show that identity is important in one other poem.
How does Sujata Bhatt show that identity is important in "Serch for my tongue"? Compare the methods she uses with another poet uses to show that identity is important in one other poem. In the poem "Search for my Tongue" Sujata Bhatt shows her importance of identity in many different ways, for example when she loses her mother tongue over her other language, she explains it as though she is losing part of herself, her home language/ her culture, this is where I believe the images of her tongue rotting in her mouth came from. "your tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth" Is and ugly disgusting image of a tongue in her mouth dying, but as "tongue" in this sense doesn't only mean the physical tongue in our mouths, it is a description to explain how she feels her whole culture and native self is wasting away and dying because she's in a new foreign country. For this reason I think her poem should be read mournfully, because there is a feeling of loss of herself and who she is. Whereas in Tom Leonard's poem, "Unrelated incidents" he explains the difference in his Scottish accent and the traditional BBC news reader voice. This poem is in a phonic form to show how the words should be pronounced in a Scottish accent, I believe this is to add to effect of his accent and strange adaptation to the standard English, he uses very little punctuation and has shaped the poem to an
Comparison of Search for my tongue by Sujata Bhatt and Unrelated incidents by Tom Leonard.
Comparison of Poems Search for my tongue and Unrelated incidents use very different languages to portray different identities. Search for my tongue by Sujata Bhatt is a poem where the author is expressing her feelings about losing her mother tongue; and she thinks she is unable to regain it. It portrays a message that if we develop a foreign tongue we forget our mother tongue. Sujata Bhatt expresses this valid theory by the poetic language she uses to portray her message. Unrelated incidents by Tom Leonard is a difficult poem to understand and interpret as it uses a lot of slang words, which is mainly Scottish dialect used on the streets. What I have interpreted of it was that the six o'clock news was being read out in slang terms. This creates a distinct identity because of the use of slang words. What the author of this poem is trying to depict is that we can't tell the news in a street slang manner and be believed. It doesn't matter how you portray the language it is what you say. Search for my tongue uses very poetic language throughout the poem especially in lines 31-38, where it uses a lot of metaphors. The author engages the reader by asking a rhetorical question: "I ask you, what you would do, if you had two tongues in your mouth, and lost the first one, the mother tongue, and could not really know the other, the foreign tongue." This makes the reader question
West Indian carpenter - What the poem is about.
What the poem is about * The poem describes the workshop and daily life of a highly skilled West Indian carpenter (lines 1-20). * His livelihood is threatened by imported steel and formica furniture (lines 21-26). * On Sundays, the carpenter becomes a sculptor, carving out of his imagination wooden figures which resemble the effigies of old African gods (lines 27-47). * He is reminded of Africa and feels anger. How the poem is written Structure and sound The poem is arranged in couplets (pairs of lines), but there isn't a regular pattern to these couplets. The line endings don't always come where we would expect them. The sense seems to 'cut' suddenly from one line to the next: The knuckles of his hands were sil-/ vered knobs of nails hit, hurt and flat-/ tened out with blast of heavy hammer. This creates a kind of unpredictability in the movement of the lines. It makes us read them more tentatively. We have to find our way through the poem. What does this suggest about the carpenter? The poem is full of sounds: * Make a list of all the alliteration you can find in the poem. What's the effect? 'it shone like his short-sighted glasses' (line 4) 'nails hit, hurt' (line 6) Can you hear the sound of the plane gliding over the wood and the harsh banging of the hammer? * There is some repetition of sounds in the poem too: 'dug out / wood out' (lines 1-2) 'hurt
The poems 'Search For My Tongue' by Sujata Bhatt and 'Unrelated Incidents' by Tom Leonard both shows exploration of the idea that your identity is closely linked with the language you use.
Question: Compare the ways in which two poems from this selection explore the idea that your identity is closely linked with the language you use. The poems 'Search For My Tongue' by Sujata Bhatt and 'Unrelated Incidents' by Tom Leonard both shows exploration of the idea that your identity is closely linked with the language you use. Search For my Tongue is a poem that employs an extended metaphor throughout the poem. The writer writes about herself being torn between two languages. However the poem Unrelated Incidents is depicting a Glaswegian man who considers that BBC newsreaders are torn between two accents. He believes that the news presenter applies a middle class accent when they present, but their original tone of voice is diverse. Meaning that people only trust people who talk in an aristocratic enunciation. Unrelated Incidents uses a very unique structure. There is a maximum of 3 words in one line. The whole poem is written vertically as if it was a building. On the other hand Search For My Tongue is written is English first and then in the middle there are 7 lines of Gujarati and then it finishes with lines in English. I believe the author here is trying to show how is to be torn between two languages. There are different tones used in each of these poems. Bhatt uses anger at the beginning of the poem, 'I ask you, what would you do if you had two
Unrelated Incidents' by Tom Leonard and 'Search for my Tongue' by Sujata Bhatt are two poems that give people an
'Unrelated Incidents' by Tom Leonard and 'Search for my Tongue' by Sujata Bhatt are two poems that give people an incite into how a person is perceived by others, by the way that they speak. 'Unrelated Incidents' is about how the BBC newsreaders all talking in Standard English and will not have a Scottish person reading the news because the viewers will not understand there accent, Tom Leonard views this as discrimination and shows his dislike to this attitude in his poem. 'Search for my Tongue' is about Sujata Bhatt's personal experiences with learning another language and having to speak in a foreign tongue and forgetting about the mother tongue which is the original language. When Sujata thinks that she has finally lost her mother tongue she starts to hear it again in her dreams. The layout of the poem 'Unrelated Incidents' is set out in an unusual way because of the poem talking about the BBC newsreaders. When the newsreaders reads out the news they read it off of autocue and this is how the poem is set out. When first looking at 'Unrelated Incidents' it is difficult to read because of the spellings of the words. The poem is written phonetically and not in Standard English. Tom Leonard says in line 27-30 'this is me token yir right way a spellin.' Leonard also uses colloquial which is slang he uses it in the last line with 'belt up' he does this to mock the way the news
Choose two poems, where the writer reveals strong feelings about their culture or tradition.
Choose two poems, where the writer reveals strong feelings about their culture or tradition. The poems, 'For search For My Tongue' and 'Half-Caste' are poems, which concentrate on one major factor: culture. Although the poets may hold opposing stances, these are expressed in an effective and distinctive manner. Both John Agard of 'Half-Caste' and Sujata Bhatt of 'For Search For My Tongue' talk passionately of their culture and tradition in emotive language. Firstly I will discuss an idealistic yet cultural poem: 'For Search For My Tongue'. An unordinary poem using Gujrati, phonetic Gujrati and ordinary English language structure. The poem is concerned with mother tongue (Gujrati), and how the first tongue is put on back burner; as a foreign tongue needs to be spoken. The language of the poem is like plait; this has been shown with the use of the metaphors in a rather dramatic style. Unique style and hypothesis needs to be tested. [email protected] Secondly the poem entitled 'Half-Caste': here the author takes a rather dramatic tone, although there is humour but is sarcastic and cynical. The author is a victim of prejudice and looks for acceptance as a person and explanation from those who have been prejudiced towards him. He authenticates the poem to a certain extent by illustrating his concerns by challenging the faces of prejudice. Although the poem 'For
Comparing Cultures and Traditions in Poetry
Comparing Cultures and Traditions in Poetry When you start to break down barriers within poems you begin to discover political and cultural differences, and how they should be addressed. It is important to look at, and discuss structure, language and imagery in order to compare the two poems fully. The two poems "Search for my tongue" and "Not my business" are both written by poets from very different backgrounds and cultures, looking to get their point across. Bhatt emphasises in his poem the on-going concerns of dying traditional languages and the fact that if you learn a new language, your old language could fade away. Osundare a Nigerian poet describes the growth of tyranny and if people ignore this growth, the tyranny will grow and grow till you become directly involved with it, Osundare's poem is based upon Pasto Neimaller's speech about Nazis in WWI and how they forcibly removed Jews from their homes. Both the poems adopt irregular poetic structures to the more "traditional" way. Bhatt writes the poem "Search for my tongue" as if it were a speech, speaking to the reader and telling the reader about issues that he faces as a dialect. There are no separate verses, just one long verse split up by phonetic translation of Gujarati. Enjambment is also used to maker poem flow much easier, increasing feeling that he is talking to us. Osundare writes the poem like a native