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 tongues in your mouth.’ This gives the reader the feeling of the poem straight away. Moreover Leonard uses the sense of anger throughout the poem, ‘voice lik wanna yoo scruff.’ The reader can immediately tell that the poet is showing to the audience that the poem is angry with someone. Search For My Tongue uses repetition to set a tone to the poem, but Leonard shows no sign of this. The poet utilizes two repetition devices the first is, ‘your mother tongue would rot, rot and die in your mouth.’ This reiteration is used to tell the audience her culture will be lost. The second use is when the words ‘grows’ is used three times. This is because the poet wishes to give the poem impact and it is also echoing the image of growth.
Both poems do not use any type of rhyme, but Unrelated Incidents uses a Glaswegian accent as a type of rhyme. Even though none of the poems use obvious uses of rhyme, there are many exploitation of imagery. Straight away both poems show signs of rhetorical devices and irony. Bhatt start off with a rhetorical device, ‘you ask what I mean.’ This is to give the reader the idea to read on is required to reveal the answer to the question. Leonard uses the ironies of you have to speak in a BBC accent to be understood.
The obvious sign of imagery throughout Search for my Tongue is the extended metaphor. The metaphor is of a plant and a tongue. ‘Rot and die in your mouth,’ this is showing decay of a plant, Bhatt also says, ‘it grows back, a stump of a shoot grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins.’ This is in addition applying to a plant and your tongue. If you observe Tom Leonard’s poem there is only one use of imagery but there is an implication of the poet is annoyed that people are judged by their accents, ‘yi widny wahnt.’
Vocabulary is exclusive in both poems. The Bhatt poem uses Gujarati and the Unrelated Incidents poem uses is written in a Glaswegian accent.
In conclusion both poems are similar since both writers are torn between two languages. However Unrelated Incidents uses irony to show that the person is discriminated that people only listen to people with upper-class accents. Bhatt’s poem uses an extended metaphor throughout the poem. So the poems are similarities and differences.