Poetry Analysis Tatamkhulu Afrika: Nothing's Changed, Sujata Bhatt: from Search for My Tongue, Tom Leonard: from Unrelated Incidents, Derek Walcott: Love after Love

Tatamkhulu Afrika: Nothing's Changed

This poem depicts a society where rich and poor are divided. In the apartheid era of racial segregation in South Africa, where the poem is set, laws, enforced by the police, kept apart black and white people. The poet looks at attempts to change this system, and shows how they are ineffective, making no real difference. Jackie Fielding writes:

“I had always assumed that the poem was written post-apartheid and reflected the bitterness that knowing “one's place” in society is so deeply ingrained that the I-persona can't bring himself to accept his new-found freedom under Mandela. I also find it interesting that the poet is not South African and not black.”

“District Six” is the name of a poor area of Cape Town (one of South Africa's two capital cities; the other is Pretoria). This area was bulldozed as a slum in 1966, but never properly rebuilt. Although there is no sign there, the poet can feel that this is where he is: “...my feet know/and my hands.”

Similarly the “up-market” inn (“brash with glass” and the bright sign ,“flaring like a flag”, which shows its name) is meant for white customers only. There is no sign to show this (as there would have been under apartheid) but people, being poor, will not be allowed past the “guard at the gatepost”. The “whites only inn” is elegant, with linen tablecloths and a “single rose” on each table. It is contrasted with the fast-food “working man's cafe” which sells the local snack (“bunny chows”). There is no tablecloth, just a plastic top, and there is nowhere to wash one's hands after eating: “wipe your fingers on your jeans”. In the third stanza the sense of contrast is most clear: the smart inn “squats” amid “grass and weeds”.

Perhaps the most important image in the poem is that of the “glass” which shuts out the speaker in the poem. It is a symbol of the divisions of colour, and class - often the same thing in South Africa. As he backs away from it at the end of the poem, Afrika sees himself as a “boy again”, who has left the imprint of his “small, mean mouth” on the glass. He wants “a stone, a bomb” to break the glass - he may wish literally to break the window of this inn, but this is clearly meant in a symbolic sense. He wants to break down the system, which separates white and black, rich and poor, in South Africa.

The title of the poem suggests not just that things have not changed, but a disappointment that an expected change has not happened. The poem uses the technique of contrast to explore the theme of inequality. It has a clear structure of eight-line stanzas. The lines are short, of varying length, but usually with two stressed syllables. The poet assumes that the reader knows South Africa, referring to places, plants and local food. The poem is obviously about the unfairness of a country where “Nothing's changed”. But this protest could also apply to other countries where those in power resist progress and deny justice to the common people.

What does the poet think about change in his home country?
How does the poem contrast the rich and the poor in South Africa?
Why does the poet write about two places where people buy food?
Comment on the image of the plate-glass window to show how poor people are shut out of things in South Africa. What does the poet want to do to change this?

Sujata Bhatt: from Search for My Tongue

This poem (or rather extract from a long poem) explores a familiar ambiguity in English - “tongue” refers both to the physical organ we use for speech, and the language we speak with it. (Saying “tongue” for “speech” is an example of metonymy). In the poem Sujata Bhatt writes about the “tongue” in both ways at once. To lose your tongue normally means not knowing what to say, but Ms. Bhatt suggests that one can lose one's tongue in another sense. The speaker in this poem is obviously the poet herself, but she speaks for many who fear they may have lost their ability to speak for themselves and their culture.

She explains this with the image of two tongues - a mother tongue (one's first language) and a second tongue (the language of the place where you live). She argues that you cannot use both together. She suggests, further, that if you live in a place where you must “speak a foreign tongue” then the mother tongue will “rot and die in your mouth”.

As if to demonstrate how this works, Ms. Bhatt rewrites lines 15 and 16 in Gujarati, followed by more Gujarati lines, which are given in English as the final section of the poem. For readers who do not know the Gujarati script, there is also a phonetic transcript using approximate English spelling to indicate the sounds.

The final section of the poem is the writer's dream - in which her mother tongue grows back and “pushes the other tongue aside”. She ends triumphantly asserting that “Everytime I think I've forgotten,/I think I've lost the mother tongue,/it blossoms out of my mouth.”

Clearly this poem is about personal and cultural identity. The familiar metaphor of the tongue is used in a novel way to show that losing one's language (and culture) is like losing part of one's body. The poet's dream may be something she has really dreamt “overnight” but is clearly also a “dream” in the sense of something she wants to happen - in dreams, if not in reality, it is possible for the body to regenerate. For this reason the poem's ending is ambiguous - perhaps it is only in her dream that the poet can find her “mother tongue”. On the other hand, she may be arguing that even when she thinks she has lost it, it can be found again. At the end of the poem there is a striking extended metaphor in which the regenerating tongue is likened to a plant cut back to a stump, which grows and eventually buds, to become the flower which “blossoms out of” the poet's mouth. It is as if her mother tongue is exotic, spectacular or fragrant, as a flower might be.

The poem's form is well suited to its subject. The flower is a metaphor for the tongue, which itself has earlier been used as a (conventional) metaphor, for speech. The poet demonstrates her problem by showing both “mother tongue” (Gujarati) and “foreign tongue” (English), knowing that for most readers these will be the other way around, while some, like her, will understand both.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The poem will speak differently to different generations - for parents, Gujarati may also be the “mother tongue”, while their children, born in the UK, may speak English as their first language. The poem is written both for the page, where we see the (possibly exotic) effect of the Gujarati text and for reading aloud, as we have a guide for speaking the Gujarati lines.

What is the effect of using Gujarati script and an English transliteration in the poem?
Does the way you read this depend on whether or not you know Gujarati as well as English?
Many writers of classic English poetry often quote in Latin, French or other languages - is this a modern equivalent, or is Sujata Bhatt doing something different?
How does the poem present the argument that our speech and ourselves are intimately connected? Do people not have to search for their own tongue - or authentic voice - even if they have not had to move from one language to another?
What does the last sentence of the poem mean?

Tom Leonard: from Unrelated Incidents

This poem uses non-standard English to explore notions of class, education and nationality. The poem is a phonetic transcript which shows how a Glaswegian Scot might speak. The poet imagines the BBC newsreader smugly explaining why he does not talk “lik/wanna you/scruff” - though in this version, of course, he is doing just this. The writer takes on the persona of a less educated or “ordinary” Glaswegian, with whom he clearly identifies.

The poem is set out in lines of two, three or four syllables, but these are not end-stopped. The effect is almost certainly meant to be of the Autocue used by newsreaders (the text scrolls down the screen a few words at a time).

The poem seems puzzling on the page, but when read out aloud makes better sense. A Scot may find it easier to follow than a reader from London, say.

The most important idea in the poem is that of truth - a word which appears (as “trooth”) three times, as well as one “troo”. The speaker in the poem (with whom the poet seems to sympathize) suggests that listeners or viewers trust a speaker with an RP (Received Pronunciation) or “BBC” accent. He claims that viewers would be mistrustful of a newsreader with a regional accent, especially one like Glaswegian Scots, which has working-class or even (unfairly) criminal associations in the minds of some people.

The poem is humorous and challenges our prejudices. Leonard may be a little naïve in his argument, however: RP gives credibility to people in authority or to newsreaders, because it shows them not to favour one area or region - it is meant to be neutral. The RP speaker appears educated because he or she is aware of, and has dropped, distinctive local or regional peculiarities. And though RP is not spoken by everyone, it is widely understood, much more so than any regional accent in the UK. Tom Leonard's Glasgow accent would confuse many listeners, as would any marked regional voice. RP has the merit of clarity.

How does this poem work on the page and when read aloud? Do we need both to see it and hear it to get a full understanding?
How does the poem challenge social attitudes and prejudices about language?
Is this poem serious or funny or both at once? Say why.
How does the poet explore the relationship between accent, public speaking and truth?
What is the point of the last two words in the poem?

John Agard: Half-Caste

This poem develops a simple idea which is found in a familiar, if outdated phrase. Half-caste as a term for mixed race is now rare. The term comes from India, where people are rigidly divided into groups (called castes) which are not allowed to mix, and where the lowest caste is considered untouchable. In the poem John Agard pokes fun at the idea. He does this

with an ironic suggestion of things only being “half” present,
by puns, and
by looking at the work of artists who mix things.

It is not clear whether Agard speaks as himself here, or speaks for others.

The poem opens with a joke - as if “half-caste” means only half made (reading the verb as cast rather than caste), so the speaker stands on one leg as if the other is not there. Agard ridicules the term by showing how the greatest artists mix things - Picasso mixes the colours, and Tchaikovsky use the black and white keys in his piano symphonies, yet to call their art “half-caste” seems silly. The image of the black and white keys on the piano was used in a similar way by Paul McCartney in the song Ebony and Ivory:

“Ebony and ivory
live together in perfect harmony
side by side on my piano keyboard, Oh, Lord
why can't we?”

Agard playfully points out how England's weather is always a mix of light and shadow - leading to a very weak pun on “half-caste” and “overcast” (clouded over). The joke about one leg is recalled later in the poem, this time by suggesting that the “half-caste” uses only half of ear and eye, and offers half a hand to shake, leading to the absurdities of dreaming half a dream and casting half a shadow. The poem, like a joke, has a punchline - the poet invites his hearer to “come back tomorrow” and use the whole of eye, ear and mind. Then he will tell “de other half/of my story”.

Though the term “half-caste” is rarely heard today, Agard is perhaps right to attack the idea behind it - that mixed race people have something missing. Also, they often suffer hostility from the racial or ethnic communities of both parents. Though the poem is light-hearted in tone, the argument of the last six lines is very serious, and has a universal application: we need to give people our full attention and respect, if we are to deserve to hear their whole “story”.

The form of the poem is related to its subject, as Agard uses non-standard English, in the form of Afro-Caribbean patois. This shows how he stands outside mainstream British culture. There is no formal rhyme-scheme or metre, but the poem contains rhymes (“wha yu mean...mix red an green”). A formal device which Agard favours is repetition: “Explain yuself/wha yu mean”, for example. The poem is colloquial, written as if spoken to someone with imperatives (commands) like “Explain yuself” and questions like “wha yu mean”. The punctuation is non-standard using the hyphen (-) and slash (/) but no comma nor full stop, not even at the end. The spelling uses both standard and non-standard forms - the latter to show pronunciation. The patois is most marked in its grammar, where verbs are missed out (“Ah listening” for “I am listening” or “I half-caste human being” for “I am half-caste”).

When you write about the poem you should perhaps not use the term “half-caste” except to discuss how Agard presents it. If you need to, use a term like “mixed race”. For older readers, especially those aware of the (now scientifically discredited) racial theories of the Nazis, this poem seems powerful and relevant. And in Britain today, resistance to mixed-race couples (who may have mixed-race children) is as likely to come from an Asian or Afro-Caribbean parent as from a white Anglo-Saxon family. (In some ethnic groups, there is enormous family pressure to marry within the community.) Younger readers, especially in cosmopolitan communities, may wonder what the fuss is about.

How important is it for the poet to write in non-standard English?
The poem makes a serious point but uses humour to do so. What kinds of humour do you find here and how well do they work?
How does John Agard explore the meanings of “half” and “whole” in this poem?

Derek Walcott: Love after Love

This poem is about self-discovery. Walcott suggests that we spend years assuming an identity, but eventually discover who we really are - and this is like two different people meeting and making friends and sharing a meal together. Walcott presents this in terms of the love feast or Eucharist of the Christian church - “Eat...Give wine. Give bread.” And it is not clear whether this other person is merely human or in some way divine.

The poem begins with the forecast of the time when this recognition will occur - a moment of great happiness (“elation”) as “you...greet yourself” and “each will smile at the other's welcome”.

The second stanza suggests that one has to fit in with others' ideas or accommodate oneself to the world, and so become a stranger to oneself - but in time one will see who the stranger really is, and welcome him or her home. Our everyday life is seen, therefore, as a kind of temporary disloyalty, in which one ignores oneself “for another” - but all along it is the true self, the stranger “who has loved you” and “who knows you by heart”.

And when this time comes, then one can recall and review one's life - look at the record of love-letters, photographs and notes, and what one sees in the mirror - and sit and feast on one's life.

The poem is written in the second person - as if the poet addresses the reader directly. It is full of imperative verbs (commands) “sit”, “give”, “eat”, “take” and “feast”. The poet repeats words or variants of them - “give”, “love”, “stranger” and “life”. The verse form is irregular but most lines are loosely iambic and some (the 8th and 13th, for example) are quite regular tetrameters.

This is a very happy poem, especially in its view of the later years of life, not as a time of loss but of fulfilment and recovery.

What do you think this poem means? Why does the poet imagine someone as being like two different people at the same time?
How important is it for us to recognize what we are really like and accept ourselves for this?
Why is the poem written to “you” rather than about “me”? Is the poet giving advice to everyone?
Why does the poem use images of feasting?

Niyi Osundare: Not My Business

This poem is about shared responsibility 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. The poet is Nigerian but the situation in the poem could be from many countries. It 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.”

The oppressors are not specified, only identified by the pronoun “they” - but we suppose them to be the agents of the state, perhaps soldiers or police officers. The first story is Akanni's - he is seized in the morning, beaten then taken away in a jeep. We do not know if he ever returned.

The second victim is Danladi - whose family is awoken at night. Danladi is away for a long time (though there is a hint that this person eventually comes back). Last comes Chinwe, who has been an exemplary worker (she has a “stainless record”) but finds that she has been given the sack without any warning or reason.

After each of these three accounts, the speaker in the poem asks what business it is of his (or hers) - with the implication that these people's experiences are not connected to him. The speaker's only concern is for the next meal (“the yam” in “my savouring mouth”).

The poem ends with a knock on the door, and the oppressors' jeep parked outside. There seems some justice in the timing of the appearance of the jeep: “As I sat down to eat my yam”.

The poet makes it clear that the oppressors thrive when their victims act only for themselves - if they organize, then they can be stronger. Niyi Osundare also criticizes the character in the poem for thinking only of food - or perhaps understands that, in a poor country, hunger is a powerful weapon of the tyrant.

It is easy to take for granted the freedoms some of us enjoy in liberal democracies. But these are not found everywhere. There are housing estates, places of work and even schools where these basic liberties may be lost for some reason - anywhere where bullies find that their victims do not stand up for themselves or resist their power. Osundare makes it clear that it is always our business.

The poem has a very clear structure - we are told the time of each of the episodes and what happened, followed by the refrain: “What business of mine is it...?” Except for the last occasion - because it is obvious now that it (the state terror) is everyone's business. And now it is more obviously the speaker's business. We do not yet know what “they” have in store for this next victim, but we do not suppose it to be pleasant. And it turns out that merely to keep quiet and try not to be noticed is no guarantee of safety. Why not? Because the oppressors are not reasonable people who pick only on the troublemakers - they sustain a reign of terror by the randomness of their persecution of harmless or innocent people.

The names and the reference to the “yam” tell us that the poem has an African setting but apart from these details the scenes could happen in any place where the people suffer under tyranny.

How does the poet show that we are always wrong to say that bad things are not our business, so long as they happen to other people?
Do you think that the speaker in this poem is meant to be the poet? Give reasons for your answer.
In the west it may be easy to take our freedom for granted. Does this poem make you think more seriously about it?
How does the poet use the chorus in the first three verses to make his point?

Moniza Alvi: Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan

This poem can be compared usefully with the extracts from and from , as well as with - all of which look at ideas of race and identity. Where Sujatta Bhatt, Tom Leonard and John Agard find this in language, Moniza Alvi associates it with material things. The poem is written in the first person, and is obviously autobiographical - the speaking voice here is really that of the poet.

Moniza Alvi contrasts the exotic garments and furnishings sent to her by her aunts with what she saw around her in her school, and with the things they asked for in return. Moniza Alvi also shows a , as she admired the presents, but felt they were too exquisite for her, and lacked street credibility. Finally, the presents form a link to an alternative way of life (remote in place and time) which Ms. Alvi does not much approve: her aunts “screened from male visitors” and the “beggars” and “sweeper-girls” in 1950s Lahore.

The bright colours of the salwar kameez suggest the familiar notion of exotic clothes worn by Asian women, but the glass bangle which snaps and draws blood is almost a symbol of how her tradition harms the poet - it is not practical for the active life of a young woman in the west.

In a striking simile the writer suggests that the clothes showed her own lack of beauty: “I could never be as lovely/as those clothes”. The bright colours suggest the clothes are burning: “I was aflame/I couldn't rise up out of its fire”, a powerful metaphor for the discomfort felt by the poet, who “longed/for denim and corduroy”, plainer but comfortable and inconspicuous. Also she notes that where her Pakistani Aunt Jamila can “rise up out of its fire” - that is, “look lovely” in the bright clothes - she (the poet) felt unable to do so, because she was “half-English”. This may be meant literally (she has an English grandmother) or metaphorically, because she is educated in England. This sense of being between two cultures is shown when the “schoolfriend” asks to see Moniza Alvi's “weekend clothes” and is not impressed. The schoolfriend's reaction also suggests that she has little idea of what Moniza - as a young Pakistani woman - is, and is not, allowed to do at weekends, despite living in Britain.

The idea of living in two cultures is seen in the voyage, from Pakistan to England, which the poet made as a child and which she dimly recalls. This is often a symbol of moving from one kind of life to another.

How well does this poem present the idea of living in (or between) two cultures? Do British Asians suffer from a loss of identity or get the best of both worlds?
How does the poet use metaphors of clothes and jewellery to explain differences in culture?
This poem brings together the salwar kameez and Marks & Spencer cardigans - what is the effect of this on the reader? In the 21st century can we say that one of these is any more British than the other?
How does Moniza Alvi make use of colour and light in the poem?
How far does our identity come from the things we own - presents and possessions? How far does it come from the way we have to live?
What does Moniza Alvi think of the way of life she has left behind in Lahore - both that of her relations (well-off but confined to their house and “screened from male visitors”) and that of the poor beggar and sweeper girls?
How does the poem's last line suggest the idea that Moniza Alvi did not belong in Pakistan?

Grace Nichols: Hurricane Hits England

The central image in this poem is not the poet's invention but drawn from her (and other people's) experience. The hurricanes that sometimes strike England as destructive storms really do bring the Caribbean (or its weather) to Britain - they retrace the poet's journey from the west, and recall her own origins.

The poem begins in the third person (note the pronouns “her” and “she”) but changes in the second stanza to a first-person view as the poet speaks of herself, and addresses the tropical winds. The speaker here could be anyone who has made this journey, but Grace Nichols is probably speaking for herself in the poem. The poem is written mostly as free verse - there is no rhyme scheme; stanzas vary in length, as do the lines, though the first line of the poem is a perfect pentameter.

The poem is interesting for its range of vocabulary. Ms. Nichols uses the patois form “Huracan” and names the gods (“Oya” and “Shango”) of the Yoruba tribe, who were taken as slaves to the Caribbean in times past. She connects this to the modern world, as she names the notorious Hurricane Hattie (of October 1961). There is interesting word play in “reaping havoc” - a pun on the familiar phrase “wreaking (making or causing) havoc”. The poem also brings together the four elements of earth, air (wind), fire (lightning) and water.

But the most striking things in this poem are the images and symbols from the natural world, which explain the poet's relationship to the Caribbean and to England. The wind is called a “howling ship” - “howling” we expect to find with “wind”, not “ship”. (Technically, this is a transferred epithet.) But the wind is like a ship in having travelled across the ocean. This nautical image is echoed later by the comparison of felled trees to “whales”. The reference to an “ancestral spectre” calls to mind the worship of the spirits of ancestors, a practice the slaves took from Africa to the West Indies. Here the ghost of the ancestor is perhaps rebuking the poet for leaving the Caribbean.

In the fourth stanza, Ms. Nichols contrasts the massive power of the natural electricity of lightning with the electricity generated by man. The electrical storm cuts off the mains electricity, plunging us into “further darkness”. This may be the literal darkness of England in winter, or a metaphor for the poet's dismay at leaving her homeland.

The fallen trees (which lie around in England after a tropical storm) are seen by the poet as like herself, uprooted from her home. The wind brings warmth to “break (the ice of) the frozen lake” in her - as if the English weather has caused her to lose touch with her emotions. (Associating one's mood with the prevailing weather is a well-established poetic convention, sometimes known as the pathetic fallacy. Here pathetic means to do with feelings [Greek pathos]. It is a fallacy [mistaken belief] because our moods do not literally control the weather (unless we have special magical powers), though often the weather does influence our moods!)

Perhaps the most powerful image, from a Caribbean writer, is that which has its own line, where Grace Nichols asks: “O why is my heart unchained?” In expressing her sense of joy, after the storm has hit England, she recalls the image of freed slaves being released from the chains in which they have been held. Here she shows awareness of her historical culture.

Finally, the sense that England and the Caribbean are all part of the same planet is spelled out in the poem's last line. This reads like a tautology (look it up) but expresses Ms. Nichols' sense that the reader needs to know the essential nature of the earth. It may be an imitation of a line by the comic writer Gertrude Stein, who wrote, in Sacred Emily, that “Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose”.

How does the poem (and the hurricane) connect England and the Caribbean?
Comment on the way that Grace Nichols uses the names of the tribal gods and the hurricanes in this poem.
How does Grace Nichols use images of weather and nature to explore human emotions?
What is the effect of the last line of the poem?