Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan is a poem about a young girl of mixed race and the difficulty she finds with fitting in, or feeling apart of either the Pakistani or the English culture. The young girl in the poem is describing gifts that were sent to her in England from Pakistan. The presents from Pakistan are beautiful but the girl feels awkward wearing them, feeling that "denim and corduroy" would be more suitable. Whereas in contrast the relatives in Pakistan would like the conventional English "cardigans /from Marks and Spencer." The poem is a sequence of personal memories.
“Half Caste” is a poem, that had has 5 verses each of different lengths, the poem as no rhyme sc, because the poem sounds like an argument.
The poet John Agard creates an image of a person of mixed race in tangible, loving expression of human being from different cultural backgrounds. That is written in free verse, the phrases are arranged loosely across.
Presents from my aunt in Pakistan are a poem that is written in free verse the phrases are arranged loosely across the page. The poem is divided in stanzas of varying length; there is no rhyme scheme in the poem because the poem is supposed to be spoken loud to make sense. The poet as created an image of personal memories and culture beliefs.
The atmosphere created in this poem is very intense because Agard is trying to tell us the readers that he is not a half-caste he just as normal as everyone.
The poet uses certain words to challenge the conservation and tries to make sense to readers that he is not a “half-caste”. In the poem he writes words like Picasso he is asking should Picasso be second rate because he is mixed colour the poet uses this words to illustrate how stupid the comparison is. Agard makes language his own in the poem. He does not use full stops or commas. Doing this he is challenging language and using it for his own purposes. He also includes Jamaican dialect or pathway in the poem this further illustrates his roots and puts his own culture and language alongside traditional English.
The poet creates an image\ of sadness because of the way he feels about Pakistan and English the girl in the poem feels bad and uncomfortable. Everything is not right for her .her clothes seem to stick to her. She thinks aren’t straightforward for her. The atmosphere created in this poem is very emission the girl in the poem is trying to bring together her heritage of east and west exploring ideas of family and country identity.
The poems presents from my ante in Pakistan and “half-caste” have two things in common culture identity and experience of living between to cultures. Both poems have talked about their culture differences but are not similar. Both poets have the same opinion about their writing poems .I know this because the both talk about the way the feel about their cultures. The poems are different from each other; John Agard talks the term “half-caste” and asks the reader to think how the term can be offensive, Moniza Alvi talks about how hard it was living in between to cultures.
The poems are easy to understand if you’ve read different types of poems like have done. The poems did make me change my mind about, how people of mixed cultures or race find it difficult to cop in their community or country.
Inonge Ikachana 10d