The poem is set out in six stanzas and each of the stanzas consists of eight lines which are fairly short. Stanza one consists of a single sentence and it describes what the sees when he first walks into the country that was his homeland “…cans trodden on crunch in tall purple flowering, amiable weeds”. This shows how the poet feels when he sees his homeland.
The second stanza has a repetition of “and” and it also shows that the poet feels the racial separation in this country in every bone in his body, eg “my feet know, and my hands, and the skin about my bones”. The remaining paragraphs explain the poet’s feelings towards the white people.
The title of the poem refers to the wealth of the white people and the poverty of the black people. The poet had obviously hoped that things would change by the time he came back but to his dismay nothing has changed and it seems like that things have gotten worse.
The entire poem is full of anger. It is a protest and a cry of pain over the way in which the black people are treated. The poet wants to see justice and wants people to be treated equally instead of being treated with racism. The poem ends with the poet’s hands burning for revenge. He wants to destroy all the injustice he sees and wants to make life easier for the black people “hands burn for a stone, a bomb, to shiver down the glass”.
The poem written by Moniza Alvi is about having a mixed cultural background.
It looks like Moniza was born in Lahore in Pakistan to an English mother and a Pakistani father. She moved to or sailed to England when she was just a few months old and from the poem it doesn’t look like she has visited Pakistan ever since.
The poet describes the gifts of clothes her and jeweller sent to her by her aunts in Pakistan. She seems to be drawn to the loveliness of these things. The bright coloured salwar kameez, the candy-striped glass bangles and the apple green sari all seem to attract the poet but she still feels awkward in wearing them. It seems likes she feels more comfortable wearing English clothes “I longed for denim and corduroy”.
The writer compares the beautiful and bright clothes and jewellery from India to the boring cardigans from Marks and Spencers. The poet feels confused about her cultural identity because she felt English but at the same time she was attracted toward the pakistanian clothes and cultures.
The poem is written in five paragraphs or verses and it is full of contrasting images eg. “a salwar kameez peacock blue (Pakistani) and demin and corduroy (English)”. The first two paragraphs describes the clothes sent to the poet from her aunts in Pakistan and the rest of the paragraphs just describes how the poet feels about the clothes sent to her and how she feels about being born into a mixed culture.
The knowledge of the birthplace of the poet only comes to her when she looks at old photographs. “ I pictured my birthplace from fifties’ photographs”. So she tries to imagine what that place would look like now.
The form of the poem is irregular. The lines do not all start in one place but they all start at different places and they are of different lengths. This creates a slightly worried feel to the poem and this reflects the poet’s feelings about her identity.
The poem by Lawrence Ferlinghetti is comparing the lifestyle of the rich people and the life style of the poor people in San Francisco. In this poem the poet notices the difference in appearance of two people in a yellow garbage truck and an elegant couple in a Mercedes.
The poet describes the appearance of the two scavengers in the garbage truck and compares them with the people in the Mercedes. It looks like as if the poet is trying to say that the people in the Mercedes live an easy carefree life while the two scavengers have to work very hard from four a.m in the morning to make money.
The poet says that the young man in the Mercedes with the sunglasses and long blond hair is the same age as one of the scavengers so it seems unfair that one of them lives a life of comfort while the other has to collect rubbish to make ends meet.
It seems that no matter what the scavengers’ do they are never going to have an easy life “…… as if they were watching some odourless tv ad in which everything is always possible”. This seems to say that the people in the Mercedes have everything while the two people on the garbage truck can only dream about the things that those two in the Mercedes have.
The poet also says at the end of the poem that anything is possible. This means that someday the guys in the garbage truck could also drive around in a Mercedes. It also looks like the people in the Mercedes are educated business people who have well paid jobs. But on the other hand the guys in the garbage truck don’t seem to be very educated and it does not look like as if their jobs pay them well either.
Of the three poems I read I think the poem by Moniza Alvi has the strongest contrast. This is because through out the entire poem the writer describes in detail about how radiant the clothes and jewellery from Pakistan look in comparison to the dull denim and the corduroy worn by the English people and the cardigans found in Marks and Spencers.
The poet describes how the salwar kameez from Pakistan glistens like an orange peal and embossed slippers which were gold and black in colour. And the sari was apple green with silver boarder. This shows that all the clothes from Pakistan were brightly coloured and looked nothing like the clothes worn by the English.
The poet also gives a description of how the women in Lahore were treated. It seems from the poets’ account the women in Lahore were kept in shaded rooms and prevented from talking to any male visitors. This also shows a great contrast. The women in England are free to talk to anyone they want and they can go anywhere they want but it seems like this is restricted in Lahore.
