12 English Communications
Mrs Vanderbom
Poems from different cultures
Chinua Achebe :: Vultures
2-3
Tatamkhulu Afrika :: Nothing's Changed
4-6
John Agard :: Half-Caste
7-8
Moniza Alvi :: Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan
9-11
Imtiaz Dharker :: Blessing
12-13
Nissim Ezekiel :: Night of the Scorpion
14-15
Lawrence Ferlinghetti :: Two Scavengers in a Truck...
16-17
Grace Nichols :: Hurricane Hits England
18-19
Sujata Bhatt :: from Search For My Tongue
20-21
1
Chinua Achebe: Vultures
Context
Chinua Achebe was born in Nigeria in 1930 where his father worked for the Church Missionary
Society. Achebe is one of the most admired African novelists who write in English. His novels trace
Africa's transition from traditional to modern ways. He writes with a mission, and he believes that
any good work of art should have a purpose - an idea that stems from the oral tradition of
storytelling in Africa. After university, he studied broadcasting at the BBC then worked in Lagos
for the Nigerian Broadcasting Service. He married in 1961 and has four children. He became an
honorary professor at the University of Nigeria in 1985.
About the poem
The poem begins with a graphic and unpleasant description of a pair of vultures who nestle lovingly
together after feasting on a corpse. The poet remarks on the strangeness of love, existing in places
one would not have thought possible. He goes on to consider the 'love' a concentration camp
commander shows to his family - having spent his day burning human corpses, he buys them sweets
on the way home.
The conclusion of the poem is ambiguous. On one hand, Achebe praises providence that even the
cruellest of beings can show sparks of love, yet on the other, he despairs - they show love solely for
their family, and so allow themselves to commit atrocities towards others.
Key phrases and how they fit into the theme
Key phrase
Commentary
Strange is isolated in a single-word line. This makes us dwell on the word
and prepares us for the image of love settled in an evil place. By the end
Strange...
of the poem, Achebe shows that even the most evil people experience
kindred love, but that love is not powerful enough to halt the evil.
Achebe picks the most gruesome images he can find when describing the
...they picked/the eyes of
vultures to emphasise their evil. This prepares us for the human evil he
a swollen/corpse...
goes on to explore.
for in the very germ... is It is poignant that Achebe concludes the poem with the idea of the
lodged the perpetuity of predominance of evil. Evil is lodged within love - and evil is the haunting
evil.
final word of the poem.
Vocabulary
Words
Description
charnel-house (line 26) A vault where dead bodies or bones are piled.
Bergen-Belsen was one of the most notorious concentration camps of the
Second World War. It became a camp for those who were too weak or sick
Belsen Camp (line 30) to work and many people died because of the terrible conditions. Anne
Frank was interned there and died of typhus in 1945. The camp was
liberated in 1945.
kindred (line 49)
Related by blood, close family.
perpetuity (line 50)
Going on forever.
2
Chinua Achebe: Vultures
in that charnel-house
tidy it and coil up there, perhaps
even fall asleep - her face
In the greyness
and drizzle of one despondent
dawn unstirred by harbingers
of sunbreak a vulture
turned to the wall!
...Thus the Commandant at Belsen
Camp going home for
the day with fumes of
human roast clinging
rebelliously to his hairy
nostrils will stop
at the wayside sweet-shop
and pick up a chocolate
for his tender offspring
waiting at home for Daddy's return ...
Praise bounteous
providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
a tiny glow-worm
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of a cruel
heart or else despair
perching high on broken
bone of a dead tree
nestled close to his
mate his smooth
bashed-in head, a pebble
on a stem rooted in
a dump of gross
feathers, inclined affectionately
to hers. Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the things in its bowel. Full
gorged they chose their roost
keeping the hollowed remnant
in easy range of cold
telescopic eyes ...
Strange
indeed how love in other
ways so particular
will pick a corner
for in every germ
of that kindred love is
lodged the perpetuity
of evil.
3
Tatamkhulu Afrika: Nothing's Changed
Context
This is an autobiographical poem. Tatamkhulu Afrika (1920-2002) lived in Cape Town's District
6, which was then a thriving mixed-race inner-city community. People of all colours and beliefs
lived together peacefully, and Afrika said he felt 'at home' there.
In the 1960s, as part of its policy of apartheid the government declared District 6 a 'whites-only'
area, and began to evacuate the population. Over a period of years, the entire area was razed to the
ground. Most of it has never been built on.
The poem was written just after the official end of apartheid. It was a time of hope - Nelson
Mandela had recently been released from prison, and the ANC was about to form the government of
South Africa.
Tatamkhulu Afrika's life
Tatamkhulu Afrika's life story is complicated, but knowing something about it will help you to
understand the feelings expressed in this poem.
Tatamkhulu Afrika was brought up in Cape Town, South Africa, as a white South African.
When he was a teenager, he found out that he was actually Egyptian-born - the child of an Arab
father and a Turkish mother.
The South African government began to classify every citizen by colour - white, black and
coloured. Afrika turned down the chance to be classed as white, and chose instead to become a
Muslim and be classified as coloured.
In 1984, the poet joined the ANC (the African National Congress - the organisation leading the
struggle against apartheid). Arrested in 1987 for terrorism, he was banned from writing or speaking
in public for five years. At this point, he adopted the name - Tatamkhulu Afrika - which had
previously been his ANC code name. This enabled him to carry on writing, despite the ban.
Of his own sense of identity, the poet said: "I am completely African. I am a citizen of Africa; I'm a
son of Africa - that is my culture. I know I write poems that sound European, because I was brought
up in school to do that, but, if you look at my poems carefully, you will find that all of them, I think,
have an African flavour."
4
Tatamkhulu Afrika wrote this about his poem:
Nothing's Changed is entirely autobiographical. I can't quite remember when I wrote this, but I
think it must have been about 1990. District Six was a complete waste by then, and I hadn't been
passing through it for a long time. But nothing has changed. Not only District Six... I mean, we may
have a new constitution, we may have on the face of it a beautiful democracy, but the racism in this
country is absolutely redolent. We try to pretend to the world that it does not exist, but it most
certainly does, all day long, every day, shocking and saddening and terrible.
Look, I don't want to sound like a prophet of doom, because I don't feel like that at all. I am full of
hope. But I won't see it in my lifetime. It's going to take a long time. I mean, in America it's taken
all this time and it's still not gone... So it will change. But not quickly, not quickly at all.
What is Nothing's Changed about?





The poet returns to the wasteland that was once his home, and relives the anger he felt when
the area was first destroyed.
He sees a new restaurant: expensive, stylish, exclusive, with a guard at the gatepost.
He thinks about the poverty around it, especially the working man's café nearby, where
people eat without plates from a plastic tabletop.
This makes him reflect that despite the changing political situation, there are still huge
inequalities between blacks and whites. Even though South Africa is supposed to have
changed, he knows the new restaurant is really 'whites-only'. He feels that nothing has really
changed.
The deep anger he feels makes him want to destroy the restaurant - to smash the glass with a
stone, or a bomb.
Vocabulary
Words
Port Jackson trees
bunny chow
Description
Trees imported from Australia.
Hollowed out loaf of bread filled with curry.
5
Tatamkhulu Afrika: Nothing's Changed
I press my nose
to the clear panes, know,
before I see them, there will be
crushed ice white glass,
linen falls,
the single rose.
Small round hard stones click
under my heels,
seeding grasses thrust
bearded seeds
into trouser cuffs, cans,
trodden on, crunch
in tall, purple-flowering,
amiable weeds.
Down the road,
working man's cafe sells
bunny chows.
Take it with you, eat
it at a plastic table's top,
wipe your fingers on your jeans,
spit a little on the floor:
it's in the bone.
District Six.
No board says it is:
but my feet know,
and my hands,
and the skin about my bones,
and the soft labouring of my lungs,
and the hot, white, inwards turning
anger of my eyes.
I back from the
glass,
boy again,
leaving small mean O
of small mean mouth.
Hands burn
for a stone, a bomb,
to shiver down the glass.
Nothing's changed.
Brash with glass,
name flaring like a flag,
it squats
in the grass and weeds,
incipient Port Jackson trees:
new, up-market, haute cuisine,
guard at the gatepost,
whites only inn.
No sign says it is:
but we know where we belong.
6
John Agard: Half-Caste
The context of the poem
John Agard came to England from Guyana in 1977. Like many people from the Caribbean, he is mixed
race - his mother is Portuguese, but born in Guyana and his father is black. One of the things he enjoys
about living in England is the wide range of people he meets: 'The diversity of cultures here is very
exciting'.
However, one of the things he doesn't like is the view of racial origins, which is implied in the word 'halfcaste', still used by many people to describe people of mixed race. The term now is considered rude and
insulting.
What is 'Half-Caste' all about?
The speaker in the poem ridicules the use of the term 'half-caste' by following the idea through to its
logical conclusion:




Should Picasso be seen as second-rate because he mixed a variety of colours in his paintings?
Should the English weather be scorned because it is full of light and shadow?Should the music of
Tchaikovsky, be seen as inferior because he used both the black notes and the white notes on the
piano?
Is someone who is called a 'half caste' only half a person?
The poet asks the listener to begin to think in a more open-minded way.
7
John Agard: Half-Caste
Explain yuself
wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
half of mih ear
Ah looking at yu wid de keen
half of mih eye
an when I’m introduced to yu
I’m sure you’ll understand
why I offer yu half-a-hand
an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eye
consequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream
an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu must come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu ear
an de whole of yu mind.
Excuse me
standing on one leg
I’m half-caste.
Explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when Picasso
mix red an green
is a half-caste canvas?
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean when light an shadow
mix in de sky
is a half-caste weather?
well in dat case
england weather
nearly always half-caste
in fact some o dem cloud
half-caste till dem overcast
so spiteful dem don’t want de sun pass
ah rass?
explain yuself
wha yu mean
when yu say half-caste
yu mean tchaikovsky
sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key
wid a white key
is a half-caste symphony?
an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story.
8
Moniza Alvi: Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan
Context
Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore in Pakistan, the daughter of a Pakistani father and an English
mother. She moved to Hatfield in England when she was a few months old. She didn't revisit
Pakistan until after the publication of her first book of poems - 'The Country over my Shoulder' from which this poem comes.
The poet says:
Presents from My Aunts...was one of the first poems I wrote. When I wrote this poem, I hadn't
actually been back to Pakistan. The girl in the poem would be me at about 13. The clothes seem to
stick to her in an uncomfortable way, a bit like a kind of false skin, and she thinks things aren't
straightforward for her.
I found it was important to write the Pakistan poems because I was getting in touch with my
background. And maybe there's a bit of a message behind the poems about something I went
through, that I want to maybe open a few doors if possible.
What is 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan' about?






The speaker in the poem, who is of mixed race, describes the gifts of clothes and jewellery
sent to her in England by her Pakistani relatives.
She is drawn to the loveliness of these things, but feels awkward wearing them. She feels
more comfortable in English clothes - denim and corduroy.
She contrasts the beautiful clothes and jewellery of India with boring English
'cardigans/from Marks and Spencer'.
She tries to remember what it was like for her family to travel to England.
Her knowledge of her birthplace, which she left as a baby, comes to her only through old
photographs and newspaper reports.
She tries to imagine what that world might be like.
Vocabulary
Words
Meaning
salwar kameez Loose trousers and tunic, traditionally worn by Pakistani women.
sari
The traditional dress worn by women in India and some parts of Pakistan.
mirror-work
Asian clothing is often decorated in lots of tiny round mirrors.
prickly heat
Severe itching caused by the heat.
Lahore
The poet's birthplace in Pakistan.
fretwork
Decorative panelling, with cut-outs so you can partly see through it.
Shalimar Gardens An ornamental park in Lahore.
9
Moniza Alvi: Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan
I wanted my parents'
camel-skin lamp –
switching it on in my bedroom,
to consider the cruelty
and the transformation
from camel to shade,
marvel at the colours
like stained glass.
They sent me a salwar kameez
peacock-blue,
and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, gold and black
points curling.
Candy-striped glass bangles
snapped, drew blood.
Like at school, fashions changed
in Pakistan –
the salwar bottoms were broad and stiff,
then narrow.
My aunts chose an apple-green sari,
silver-bordered
for my teens.
My mother cherished her
jewellery –
Indian gold, dangling, filigree,
But it was stolen from our car.
The presents were radiant in my wardrobe.
My aunts requested cardigans
from Marks and Spencers.
I tried each satin-silken
top –
was alien in the sitting-room.
I could never be as lovely
as those clothes –
I longed
for denim and corduroy.
My costume clung to me
and I was aflame,
I couldn't rise up out of its fire,
half-English,
unlike Aunt Jamila.
10
My salwar kameez
didn't impress the schoolfriend
who sat on my bed, asked to see
my weekend clothes.
But often I admired the mirror-work,
tried to glimpse myself
in the miniature
glass circles, recall the story
how the three of us
sailed to England.
Prickly heat had me screaming on the way.
I ended up in a cot
In my English grandmother's dining-room,
found myself alone,
playing with a tin-boat.
Or there were beggars,
sweeper-girls
and I was there –
of no fixed nationality,
staring through fretwork
at the Shalimar Gardens.
I pictured my
Birthplace
from fifties' photographs.
When I was older
there was conflict, a fractured land
throbbing through newsprint.
Sometimes I saw Lahore –
my aunts in shaded rooms,
screened from male visitors,
sorting presents,
wrapping them in tissue.
11
Imtiaz Dharker: Blessing
Context
Imtiaz Dharker lives in Mumbai in India where, during the dry season, the temperature can reach 40
degrees. The poem is set in a vast area of temporary accommodation called Dharavi on the outskirts
of Mumbai, where millions of migrants have gathered from other parts of India and there is always
a shortage of water because it is not an official living area.
In an interview, the poet says:
But when a pipe bursts, when a water tanker goes past, there's always a little child running
behind the water tanker getting the bits of drips and it's like money, it's like currency. In a
hot country in that kind of climate, it's like a gift. And the children may have been brought
up in the city and grown up as migrants, but the mothers will probably remember that in the
village they came from, they would have to walk miles with pots to get to a well, to the
closest water source. So it really is very precious. When the water comes, it's like a god.
What is Blessing about?




The poem starts with a simple statement: 'There is never enough water', and shows what it is
like to be without water.
When the poet imagines water, it is so special it is compared to a god.
When a water pipe bursts, we are shown how the community responds: they collect as much
water as possible.
The children enjoy the water and play in it.
Key phrases and how they fit into the theme
Key phrase
The skin cracks
like a pod.
silver crashes to
the ground...
From the huts/a
congregation...
Commentary
This image of the effect of drought refers to the skin of the earth, which cracks
when dry and becomes useless for growing things, and the skin of a seed-pod,
which dries up and becomes brittle once it has fallen to earth. But it also reminds
us of the pain we feel when our own skin splits...
The rushing water, shimmering in the bright sun, shines like silver; but the word
also suggests its value to the villagers - like an outpouring of precious metal,
which will make them rich.
Congregation, like blessing, suggests that the outpouring of water is a kind of
holy communion, a religious event - 'the voice of a kindly god.'.
Glossary
Words
Municipal Provided by the local council.
Definition
12
Imtiaz Dharker: Blessing
The skin cracks like a pod.
There never is enough water.
Imagine the drip of it,
the small splash, echo
in a tin mug,
the voice of a kindly god.
Sometimes, the sudden rush
of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,
silver crashes to the ground
and the flow has found
a roar of tongues. From the huts,
a congregation: every man woman
child for streets around
butts in, with pots,
brass, copper, aluminium,
plastic buckets,
frantic hands,
and naked children
screaming in the liquid sun,
their highlights polished to perfection,
flashing light,
as the blessing sings
over their small bones.
13
Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion
Context
Nissim Ezekiel (1924 - 2004) was born in India to an Indian Jewish family. He studied in Bombay
and London.
He wrote eight collections of poetry and won the Akademi Award for a volume called 'Latter Day
Psalms'. He was also a renowned playwright, art critic, lecturer and editor.
He is credited with beginning the modernist movement in India and was one of India's best known
poets.
What is Night of the Scorpion about?
The poem is about the night when a woman (the poet's mother) in a poor village in India is stung by
a scorpion. Concerned neighbours pour into her hut to offer advice and help. All sorts of cures are
tried by the neighbours, her husband and the local holy man, but time proves to be the best healer 'After twenty hours / it lost its sting.'.
After her ordeal, the mother is merely thankful that the scorpion stung her and not the children.
Key phrases and how they fit into the theme
Quotation
Commentary
It is hard to know whose opinion this is - Ezekiel's or the neighbours'.
- flash/of diabolic tail in
Ezekiel initially sees the scorpion quite sympathetically, but, here, it is
the dark room linked with the devil.
More candles, more
Ezekiel seems irritated. More and more peasants are arriving with their
lanterns, more
lamps and nothing can help his mother. The repetition of more shows
neighbours,
how frustrated he is.
By using direct speech, Ezekiel shows his mother's selflessness. He
Thank God the scorpion
chooses her simple words to end the poem to highlight his love and
picked on me...
admiration for her.
14
Nissim Ezekiel: Night of the Scorpion
against the sum of good
become diminished by your pain.
May the poison purify your flesh
I remember the night my mother
was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had driven him
to crawl beneath a sack of rice.
of desire, and your spirit of ambition,
they said, and they sat around
on the floor with my mother in the centre,
the peace of understanding on each face.
More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and the endless rain.
My mother twisted through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic, rationalist,
trying every curse and blessing,
powder, mixture, herb and hybrid.
He even poured a little paraffin
upon the bitten toe and put a match to it.
I watched the flame feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy man perform his rites
to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
Parting with his poison – flash
of diabolic tail in the dark room –
he risked the rain again.
The peasants came like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name of God a hundred times
to paralyse the Evil One.
With candles and with lanterns
throwing giant scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked walls
they searched for him: he was not found.
They clicked their tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made
his poison moved in Mother's blood, they said.
May he sit still, they said.
May the sins of your previous birth
be burned away tonight, they said.
May your suffering decrease
the misfortunes of your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all evil
balanced in this unreal world
My mother only said
Thank God the scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.
15
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Two Scavengers in a Truck...
Context
Lawrence Ferlinghetti was born in 1919 in New York, but he is mostly associated with San
Francisco as one of the main poets of the Beat movement. In 1953, he co-founded a publishing
house and bookshop called City Lights, which specialised in Beat poetry and became a meeting
place for poets and artists.
His first book was published in 1955; he has since written 17 more books of poetry, drama, prose
and translation. He often writes about politics and social issues, as seen in Two Scavengers... He
was named as San Francisco's first Poet Laureate in 1998.
What is 'Two Scavengers...' about?
The poem describes four people held together for a moment at a red traffic light. There are two
scavengers - garbagemen 'on their way home' after their round - and two 'beautiful people', an
elegant couple 'on the way to his architect's office'. The garbagemen's day ends where the young
couple's begins. The poet compares the two pairs in detail, then seems to ask - at the end of the
poem - whether America really is a 'democracy'.
Have a look at these quotations, and our suggestions about how they fit into this theme
Quotation
Commentary
...the two scavengers up
We are encouraged to sympathise with these garbagemen who work anti
since four am/grungy from social hours and who become dirty and smelly as a result. The specific
their route
detail (four am) and the expressive word grungy make us pity them.
The elegant couple are not described in as much detail as the
garbagemen, as if the poet is less interested in them. He uses a cliché
...the cool couple...
here, the cool couple - which is how they probably think of
themselves...
It seems that the poet would like to believe that the two pairs he
'as if anything at all were describes really could be friends - but the 'as if' tells us he knows that is
possible/between them...' only imaginary. He feels that democracy hasn't succeeded because
communication between the rich and poor is still impossible.
Vocabulary
Words
coifed (line 13)
gargoyle (line 22)
Quasimodo (line 22)
Meanings
Styled - she has a casual-looking hairdo.
A spout in the shape of a grotesque head, used to clear rainwater from
old buildings (especially churches).
The title character from Victor Hugo's novel The Hunchback of Notre
Dame
16
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: Two Scavengers in a Truck...
At the stoplight waiting for the light
nine am downtown San Francisco
a bright yellow garbage truck
with two garbagemen in red plastic blazers
standing on the back stoop
one on each side hanging on
and looking down into an elegant open Mercedes
with an elegant couple in it
The man
in a hip three-piece linen suit
with shoulder-length blond hair & sunglasses
The young blond woman so casually coifed
with a short skirt and colored stocking
son the way to his architect's office
And the two scavengers up since four am
grungy from their route
on the way home
The older of the two with grey iron hair
and hunched back
looking down like some
gargoyle Quasimodo
And the younger of the two
also with sunglasses & long hair
about the same age as the Mercedes driver
And both scavengers gazing down
as from a great distance
at the cool couple
as if they were watching some odorless TV ad
in which everything is always possible
And the very red light for an instant
holding all four close together
as if anything at all were possible
between them
across that small gulf
in the high seas
of this democracy
17
Grace Nichols: Hurricane Hits England
Context
The context of this poem is quite complicated, because it involves the poet's own history of moving
between cultures - Caribbean and English - and the wider history of both those cultures.
Grace Nichols grew up in a small country village on the Atlantic coast of Guyana, in the Caribbean.
Guyana used to be a British colony, so English literature has always been part of her personal
background. In the 1970s, she moved to England, and now lives on the coast of Sussex.
In 1987, the southern coast of England was hit by what was known as The Great Storm. Hurricaneforce winds are rarely experienced in England, and the effect on the landscape, particularly the
trees, was devastating. In the Caribbean, on the other hand, hurricanes are a regular occurrence, and
Grace Nichols had experienced them during her childhood.
Grace Nichols said about the 1987 hurricane:
It seemed as though the voices of the old gods were in the wind, within the Sussex wind.
And, for the first time, I felt close to the English landscape in a way that I hadn't earlier. It
was as if the Caribbean had come to England.
What is Hurricane hits England about?
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


A woman, living in England, is woken by a hurricane.
Addressing the wind as a god, she asks what it is doing creating such havoc in this part of the world
(stanzas 2-5).
She then speaks of the effect the storm has on her personally. She feels somehow unchained, and at
one with the world.
She feels that the hurricane has come with a message to her, perhaps to tell her that the same forces
are at work in England as in the Caribbean.
Vocabulary
words
meaning
Huracan
The Carib Indian God of the winds. The Carib Indians were the original
inhabitants of the Caribbean Islands, until they were wiped out by European
settlers.
Oya and Shango
Oya and Shango are both storm gods - one female, one male - belonging
originally to the Yoruban people of West Africa. When, in the 18th and 19th
centuries, the people of Africa were transported to the Caribbean to be sold as
slaves, they carried their religion with them. At first, the gods were worshipped
secretly, but in the 20th century they emerged as symbols of the African side of
Caribbean identity. 'Ogun', in Edward Kamau Brathwaite's poem, is also a
Yoruban god.
Hattie
Hurricanes are given names, by meteorologists, in alphabetical order. Until
quite recently, these names were always female. Hurricane Hattie is one Grace
Nichols remembers from her childhood.
18
Grace Nichols: Hurricane Hits England
It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
To the landscape
Half the night she lay awake,
The howling ship of the wind
Its gathering rage,
Like some dark ancestral spectre,
Fearful and reassuring:
Talk to me Huracan
Talk to me Oya
Talk to me Shango
And Hattie,
My sweeping, back-home cousin.
Tell me why you visit.
An English coast?
What is the meaning
Of old tongues
Reaping havocIn new places?
The blinding illumination,
Even as you shortCircuit us
Into further darkness?
What is the meaning of trees
Falling heavy as whales
Their crusted roots
Their cratered graves?
O Why is my heart unchained?
Tropical Oya of the Weather,
I am aligning myself to you,
I am following the movement of your winds,
I am riding the mystery of your storm.
Ah, sweet mystery;
Come to break the frozen lake in me,
Shaking the foundations of the very trees within me,
Come to let me know,
That the earth is the earth is the earth.
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Sujata Bhatt: from Search For My Tongue
Context
Sujata Bhatt was born in 1956 in Ahmedabad, the largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat, where
her mother tongue was Gujarati. Later, her family lived for some years in the United States, where
she learned English. She now lives in Germany.
She has chosen to write poems in English, rather than Gujarati. But a number of her poems,
including this one, are written in both languages.
This poem is part of a longer poem ('Search for my Tongue'), written when she was studying
English at university in America and was afraid she might lose her original language.
In an interview, she says:
"I have always thought of myself as an Indian who is outside India."
Her mother tongue is for her an important link to her family, and to her childhood:
"That's the deepest layer of my identity."
What is from 'Search for My Tongue' about?




The poet explains what it is like to speak and think in two languages.
She wonders whether she might lose the language she began with.
However, the mother tongue: A person's first language - the one they learn from their
mother. remains with her in her dreams.
By the end, she is confident that it will always be part of who she is.
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Sujata Bhatt: from Search For My Tongue
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,
મને હુત ુું કે આબ્બી જીભ આબ્બી ભાષા
(munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)
મેં થકું ી નાબી છે
(may thoonky nakhi chay)
પરું ત ુ રાત્રે સ્વપનાુંમાું મારી ભાષા પાછી આવે છે
(parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay)
ફુલની જેમ મારી ભાષા મારી જીભ
(foolnee jaim mari bhasha nmari jeebh)
મોઢામાું બીલે છે
(modhama kheelay chay)
ફુલની જેમ મારી ભાષા મારી જીભ
(fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)
મોઢામાું પાકે છે
(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.
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