TERM 1
2014
YEAR 9 ENGLISH: POETRY FROM OTHER
CULTURES AND TRADITIONS
Assignment | Mr. Ramm
1
Year 9 English Assignment
Poetry from Other Cultures and Traditions
Table of Contents
Title Page...................................................................................................................1
Table of Contents...................................................................................................... 2
Unit Overview........................................................................................................... 3
Achievement Standards............................................................................................ 4
Learning Outcomes................................................................................................... 5
What will be expected of me during this unit?......................................................... 6
Assessment Submission Acknowledgement............................................................. 7
Part 1: Theory and Contexts
Thinking about poetry................................................................................... 9
Thinking about culture and (other) cultures................................................. 17
Glossary......................................................................................................... 21
Part 2: Poetry from Other Cultures and Traditions Anthology
Sujata Bhatt................................................................................................... 24
Moniza Alvi.................................................................................................... 30
Imtiaz Dharker............................................................................................... 36
Arun Kolatkar................................................................................................ 41
Part 3: Focus Poems and Activities
Search for my Tongue................................................................................... 45
Presents from my aunts in Pakistan.............................................................. 49
Blessing......................................................................................................... 53
An Old Woman.............................................................................................. 57
Part 4: Essay Questions and Considerations
Essay Questions............................................................................................ 62
Essay Considerations..................................................................................... 63
Part 5: Narrative and Activities
Kiss Me Carol................................................................................................. 65
Activities and Essay Responses..................................................................... 72
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Unit Overview: Poetry from Other Cultures and Traditions
The Australian Curriculum for English requires all pupils to ‘compare and evaluate a range of representations
of individuals and groups in different historical, social and cultural contexts’, and to incorporate an ‘Asia focus’.
This Unit is designed to do so through the study of poetry from other cultures and traditions.
The Unit is organised into five parts.
Part 1: Theory and Contexts
Part 2: Poetry from Other Cultures and Traditions Anthology
Part 3: Focus Poems and Activities
Part 4: Essay Questions and Considerations
Part 5: Narrative and Activities
Part 1: Theory and Contexts is designed to help students better understand the theory and contexts that
inform both the writing of poetry and the interpretation and analysis of poetry. Part 1 is divided into three
sections.
The first section presents information on poetic theory under the headings ‘Voice, Register and Tone’; ‘Form,
Pattern and Typography’ and ‘Imagery, Argument and Viewpoint’. Each segment finishes with ‘Questions to
ask yourself when thinking about …’ summarises the concerns of the segment and equips students with
strategies to apply when tasked with developing their own understandings and interpretations of the poems.
The second section presents information on thinking about both culture and other cultures under the headings
‘Culture, Tradition and Heritage’; ‘Identity, Roots and Beliefs’ and ‘Migration, Otherness and Diversity’.
The third section is a glossary of words and meanings that students are expected to know and apply.
Part 2: Poetry from Other Cultures and Traditions Anthology presents students with a collection of poems by
Sujata Bhatt, Moniza Alvi, Imtiaz Dharker and Arun Kolatkar. One piece by each poet will be studied in close
detail; a selection of pieces by each poet is offered to afford students a fuller appreciation of each poet’s work.
Each of the poets and their work is prefaced by a brief biographical portrait, material that explains informing
contexts, and an excerpt from an interview with the poet (except for Arun Kolatkar, an insight about whom is
offered by a close friend).
Part 3: Focus Poems and Activities presents one piece by each of the four poets for close consideration.
Students are first offered material that comments on particular language of the poem and possible meanings
within and interpretations of the poem. Students are then challenged to engage with the poem and offer their
own interpretations and insights. Section A asks direct questions; Section B asks broader interpretive questions
and Section C asks the student to develop extended responses.
Within Part 3, a range of differentiated tasks and activities are presented to allow students and teachers to
negotiate choices that best suit particular needs, interests and contexts.
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Part 4: Essay Questions and Considerations presents a range of comparative essay questions and a sequence of
prompts that are designed to help students both develop strategies to broaden and deepen their engagement
with and response to the tasks and poems, and to address Australian Curriculum learning outcomes in a
jargon-free fashion.
Part 5: Narrative and Activities presents students with the short fiction Kiss Miss Carol by Farrukh Dhondy,
along with accompany activities and essay responses. This has been integrated into the Unit to complement
and further broaden student engagement with the concerns and concepts at work within the poems.
Achievement Standards
The Year 9 English curriculum is built around the three interrelated strands of Language, Literature and
Literacy. This Assignment Unit has been designed to balance and integrate all three strands. Together the
strands focus on developing your knowledge, understanding and skills in listening, reading, speaking, writing
and creating. The learning will build on concepts, skills and processes developed in earlier years - your teacher
will revisit and strengthen these as needed – and introduce, develop and refine new concepts, skills and
processes.
Below is a written description of what you will need to know and be able to do by the end of Year 9. Each
Assignment Unit should be seen as an opportunity to develop the skills and knowledge outlined. The
Achievement Standards are broken down into six main parts.
Receptive modes (listening, reading and viewing)
By the end of Year 9, students are able to analyse the ways that text structures can be manipulated for effect.
They are able to analyse and explain how images, vocabulary choices and language features distinguish the
work of individual authors.
They are able to evaluate and integrate ideas and information from texts to form their own interpretations.
They are able to select evidence from the text to analyse and explain how language choices and conventions
are used to influence an audience. They are able to listen for ways texts position an audience.
Productive modes (speaking, writing and creating)
Students are able to understand how to use a variety of language features to create different levels of
meaning. They are able to understand how interpretations can vary by comparing their responses to texts to
the responses of others. In creating texts, students are able to demonstrate how manipulating language
features and images can create innovative texts.
Students are able to create texts that respond to issues, interpreting and integrating ideas from other texts.
They are able to make presentations and contribute actively to class and group discussions, comparing and
evaluating responses to ideas and issues. They are able to edit for effect, selecting vocabulary and grammar
that contribute to the precision and persuasiveness of texts and use accurate spelling and punctuation.
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Learning Outcomes
Following is a list of learning outcomes that will be addressed in this Assignment Unit. As this is a poetry unit,
the material allows and compels such a wide variety of outcomes to be integrated into your study. These
descriptions come straight from the Australian National Curriculum - English.

Understand that authors innovate with text structures and language for specific purposes and effects
(ACELA1553)

Understand how punctuation is used along with layout and font variations in constructing texts for
different audiences and purposes (ACELA1556)

Explain how authors creatively use the structures of sentences and clauses for particular effects
(ACELA1557)

Identify how vocabulary choices contribute to specificity, abstraction and stylistic effectiveness
(ACELA1561)

Interpret and compare how representations of people and culture in literary texts are drawn from
different historical, social and cultural contexts (ACELT1633)

Present an argument about a literary text based on initial impressions and subsequent analysis of the
whole text (ACELT1771)

Reflect on, discuss and explore notions of literary value and how and why such notions vary according
to context (ACELT1634)

Explore and reflect on personal understanding of the world and significant human experience gained
from interpreting various representations of life matters in texts (ACELT1635)

Analyse texts from familiar and unfamiliar contexts, and discuss and evaluate their content and the
appeal of an individual author’s literary style (ACELT1636)

Analyse text structures and language features of literary texts, and make relevant comparisons with
other texts (ACELT1772)

Analyse how the construction and interpretation of texts, including media texts, can be influenced by
cultural perspectives and other texts (ACELY1739)

Interpret, analyse and evaluate how different perspectives of an issue, event, situation, individuals or
groups are constructed to serve specific purposes in texts (ACELY1742)

Use comprehension strategies to interpret and analyse texts, comparing and evaluating
representations of an event, issue, situation or character in different texts (ACELY1744)

Explore and explain the combinations of language and visual choices that authors make to present
information, opinions and perspectives in different texts (ACELY1745)
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What will be expected of me during this unit?
•
Engage with the material – poems and activities – in a consistent and concerted fashion
•
Engage with the material – poems and activities – in an open and earnest fashion
•
Contribute to the class dynamic and discussion
•
Follow instructions carefully
•
Take an active responsibility for your own learning
•
Demonstrate maturity and independence
•
Be organised and ready to learn when you come to lesson
•
Take pride in your work
•
Set learning goals and constantly review them
•
Encourage and help others achieve their goals
•
Respect the rights of others to learn
•
Do your best
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Assessment Submission Acknowledgement
This document must be filled-in, signed and submitted with an assessment, when completed.
Assessment Title:
______________________________________________________________
Declaration:
I confirm that I have completed and submitted this Assessment on the date
noted below. The material submitted for assessment is my own work.
Material from other sources has not been submitted, unless acknowledged.
Student’s name:
______________________________________________________________
Student’s signature:
______________________________________________________________
Submission date:
______________________________________________________________
Teacher feedback:
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Part 1:
Theory and Contexts
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Thinking about poetry
One of the characteristic things about poetry is its richness or density of meaning. Poets work closely
on language - they make it do as much as possible in the space of a small number of words. That's
why poems need reading more slowly, and more often, than other kinds of text.
This quality of concentration is characteristic of all poetry whatever cultural tradition it comes from.
It reflects the nature of poetry as an expressive art - that what a poem says or does matters to the
person who is writing it. It's what enables poems to lodge memorably in our minds, and to go on
extending and deepening their meanings over time.
Studying poetry in school is at least partly about learning to appreciate what goes into a poem's
making. This introductory section looks at four broad aspects of poetic craft which contribute, in
different ways, to the meanings readers are able to make.
VOICE • REGISTER • TONE
Poetry is written to be heard as well as seen. Poets listen to their drafts as they emerge and try to
develop a distinctive voice or style across a body of work. One mark of enduring quality in a poet is a
sense of a recognisable individual voice.
A poem's voice may also give us a sense of where it's coming from in a wider sense. It may be the
characteristic voice of a particular place, time or literary tradition. The four poets in this Assignment
Unit are all living writers whose work has appeared within the last thirty years; they are considered
to be ‘contemporary’ authors. However, the variety of their biographies and the cultures in which
they have worked have created marked distinctions of dialect and style.
VOICE is not always a matter of simple identity. In some poems there is more than one voice - for
example, when the poem is set out in the form of a dialogue. In some poems, the voice which has
been adopted is that of a 'persona', a kind of character within the poem - so the 'I' of a poem is not
always the author.
As with other kinds of writing, a poet's choice of REGISTER - of vocabulary and grammatical
structures - will strongly affect the way a reader responds. Older poetry, in particular, is likely to
sound 'more poetic' to contemporary ears. During the 20th present century, following the example of
modernism, absolutely any kind of language came to be incorporated into poetry. Poets are great
experimenters - there can be pleasure in playing with conventions, and also a power in using
language adventurously or even shockingly, to find a way past the reader's more regular responses.
There is a strong sense in which all poetry is a 'non-standard' form of the language.
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The VOICE of a poem is often clearest when the poem is addressed directly to the reader, or to a
third party whose conversation is overheard. This kind of voice will tend to be more personal, more
like a drama than a written narrative. Contemporary poetry has often modelled itself consistently on
the cadences – the audible fluctuations, the rhythms - of speech, partly as a way of making poetry
more accessible. For some poets, the printed version of a poem is no more than an unsatisfactory
transcript of a sequence of sounds. The emphasis on performance can, itself, affect the visual look of
the work on the page.
The TONE of a poem is best explained as the 'tone of voice' in which we imagine the poem to be
spoken. From the tone, we get our sense of the poet's relationship to the reader - or the nature of
the adopted persona. We may also pick up an expressed attitude towards the things described. The
tone of a writer's work is sometimes so consistent that it becomes a part of what we recognise
about her or him. In other cases, tone may vary both between poems and within a single poem, as
the variations of voice and mood track the development of the poem's ideas.
Questions to ask yourself when thinking about VOICE
•
How would I read this poem aloud? Is there anything in the voice of the poem which makes it
difficult for me to read it aloud?
•
Does the voice in this poem sound as if it's coming from a particular time or place?
•
Who seems to be speaking in this poem? Who is the poem speaking to?
•
Does the poem's tone of voice suggest a particular attitude towards or relationship with, the reader?
•
Is the poem characterised by a particular kind of vocabulary or sentence?
•
Does the tone of voice suggest a particular attitude towards the subject matter of the poem?
•
Is there more than one kind of voice in the poem? If so, what's the relationship between the two?
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FORM • PATTERN • TYPOGRAPHY
Poetic FORM is to do with a poem's shape and pattern, both on the page and to the ear. One basic
distinction is between what are called ‘metrical’ and ‘non-metrical’ forms. Metrical poetry (or verse)
is composed to fit a recurring pattern of rhythmical stresses, and often a rhyme scheme as well. The
poem is laid out in regular blocks. The verse unit ranges from simple couplets to elaborate stanzas.
Most song lyrics are metrical, to match the repeating patterns of musical composition. In poems of
this kind, the meaning is, to some extent, made to fit the shape: the poet's choice of words and word
order must take account of the rhyme scheme and the pattern of syllables.
In a non-metrical poem, on the other hand, the structure is 'organic' in the sense that it finds its own
shape line by line, resulting in irregular patterns and variable paragraphs, rather than fixed stanzas.
This form of poetry, sometimes called 'free verse', is built around the varying rhythms of the
speaking voice, and of natural grammar, so is likely to sound more like a person talking.
Before 1900, virtually all poetry in English was metrical. During the 20th century, the Modern
movement greatly extended the boundaries of what was considered poetic, so that any kind of
language could be incorporated into a poem, and irregular forms became much more common. Yet
traditional metre hasn't died out and many contemporary poets are still strongly attracted to its
music and its feeling of durability.
Although some modern poetry (like some modern art or music) may appear entirely fragmentary
and 'unstructured', most poets consider carefully how a poem sounds and appears. In a non-metrical
poem, poetic PATTERNING can be achieved in other ways, particularly through the repetition of
words and phrases to build rhythmic and emotional energy. The majority of the poems in this
Assignment Unit take a non-metrical form, but build pattern and cohesion in other ways, such as
through consistency of voice or line length, repeated grammatical structures or the echoes of halfrhymes or rhythmic fragments.
Another aspect of FORM is to do with the visual presentation of the poem on the page, or its
TYPOGRAPHY. Traditionally, each line of a metrical poem is marked with a capital letter (regardless
of sentence grammar), and indentations at the start of lines correspond to rhyme patterns. There is
also a tendency for punctuation to coincide with the ends of lines and for each stanza to end with a
full stop so that 'running on' the grammatical sense across a line break is a definite variation on the
established pattern.
In non-metrical poetry, lines are likely to be more fluid, varying in length for specific effects and
running on as a matter of course. Capitals are used as in prose, to begin sentences, rather than lines.
Lines aren't marked so emphatically, and punctuation marks, which are a written convention, may
be replaced by spaces representing the breath-pauses of speech. In a lot of modern poetry, the
upper case and other punctuation marks have been eliminated altogether. Instead, the poet relies
on line breaks and spacing to suggest how the poem should be voiced and understood. Different
fonts (typefaces) and other variations can also be used to structure or emphasise.
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Questions to ask yourself when thinking about FORM
•
Is there a formal structure to this poem? Does it have a regular metrical pattern? Is there a rhyme
scheme? Could someone sing this poem?
•
Are there other ways in which this poem is patterned? What elements of repetition are there?
•
Is this structure associated with a particular type of poem or particular period?
•
What typographic conventions does the poem use, or not use? How does that contribute to the style
or voice of the poem?
•
Do any of these things help me to understand what kind of poem this is?
•
Does the form of the poem emphasise any aspect of its mood or meaning?
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IMAGERY • REPRESENTATION • METAPHOR
In poetry, an 'IMAGE' is a sharply-focused descriptive detail. This is most often a visual detail (like an
image in a film), though it can evoke any of the senses. It is through their images that poets engage
the reader's imagination, evoking a place, mood or person, and also influencing us to respond in
particular ways.
At the core of any IMAGE is a noun. Adjectives may extend and adjust the noun's meaning, as may
the verbs which go with it, but the noun is what we see - so it will be a concrete (i.e. non-abstract) noun. Images work because 'things' carry meanings of various kinds, depending on the context in
which they occur - they can imply an event, an emotion or a wider idea.
IMAGES will often mean different things to different people, depending on their experience both as
readers and as human beings, and one of the things poets do is to compel or encourage us to see
things in a different way. However, images also work through the shared meanings and associations
which any culture develops around particular words or objects - their connotations. When an image
is consistently recognised and interpreted in the same way, it becomes an established symbol within
that culture.
IMAGES can be either literal or figurative. In the case of literal imagery, connotation is achieved
through selecting and emphasising details.
When an IMAGE is figurative (or metaphorical - the words are interchangeable), its connotations are
doubly emphasised since that is the point of the shift into figurative language: the thing described
acquires the connotations of the thing named. For that reason, METAPHORS tend to feature
strongly in what is sometimes termed 'emotive language', whether in poetry or in propaganda.
Metaphors are also a means of converting abstract ideas into the physical images with which poetry
deals.
Discussion of METAPHOR in the classroom is sometimes sidetracked into the essentially trivial
distinction between 'simile' and 'metaphor' as alternative forms of 'linguistic device'. What matters
is not the difference between the two, but the way both are used to impose or suggest meanings.
A METAPHOR is not so much a decorative 'device' as a way of thinking. Some metaphors are so
deep-rooted that they structure the way almost everybody thinks - that life is a journey, that love is
a fire, that argument is a kind of warfare. Others, in poetry especially, are acts of invention, in which
one object is fused imaginatively with another, in order to startle or disturb the reader into some
fresh perception. Careful attention to the IMAGES in a poem helps to put us directly in touch with
the poet's imaginative vision, and with the values and attitudes which underlie it.
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Questions to ask yourself when thinking about IMAGERY
•
Which image first caught my attention? Which image is most central to what the poem has to say?
Did any of the images surprise me?
•
Are some of these images metaphorical? What things are being superimposed here? How does this
add to my understanding?
•
Do some of the images suggest strong positive or negative connotations?
•
Do certain images connect with each other, to create a particular mood, attitude or impression?
•
Are there contrasting images in the poem? How do these contribute to meaning? Do they relate to
shifts in the narrative or argument?
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NARRATIVE • ARGUMENT • VIEWPOINT
The NARRATIVE of a text is the order in which events, images or ideas are recorded, and the way in
which they relate to each other. In looking at the narrative sequence of a poem, we are focusing on
the way it has been constructed in terms of the development of its content.
Many poems are like miniature stories. They record a series of events, perhaps leading to some kind
of insight at the end. First person NARRATIVES give the appearance of personal memories. Third
person narratives or descriptions can seem more detached, with less of a sense that the poet is
present in the text.
The past is the natural tense for NARRATIVES, though telling a story in the present tense can
produce a sense of reliving the experience, moment by moment. Looking carefully at the tenses
used in a poem will help to establish its chronology, and to distinguish, for example, 'how it used to
be' (also signalled by words like 'once' or 'then') from how it is now, or how it might be in the future.
The distinction between NARRATIVE and ARGUMENT isn't a hard and fast one - narratives can be
used to illustrate arguments, for example. But many poems are built around the logical
development of ideas, rather than the recounting of events. Arguments proceed by asking
questions, stating propositions, referring to examples, drawing conclusions. However, while other
kinds of writers deal in abstract debate, poets are more likely to make their point through resonant
images, or other less direct means. This way of organising a poem is particularly common to those
written in the second person.
The underlying structure of a poem can usually be detected through its use of connectives. In the
case of ARGUMENT, these are likely to be logical conjunctions such as 'if', 'so', 'because', 'but', 'yet',
rather than the conjunctions of time used in narratives.
Another way of thinking about the development of a poem is in terms of its transitions - the term
used in film editing for the way shots are joined. Spaces between sections in a poem may signal a
break in continuity: a kind of fade out and in. One image may effectively dissolve into another, or the
cut may be more abrupt. And as with films, poems often leave it to the reader to make sense of such
transitions for themselves.
Thinking about the sequence of a NARRATIVE or an ARGUMENT in this way may draw attention to
the VIEWPOINT of the poem and take us back to the sense of 'voice' with which we started. We
need to work out whose voice we are hearing, and who is seeing whatever is being described. Is the
viewpoint fixed or does it shift between different observers, or over time? As with any other text,
the beginning and the ending of a poem are likely to carry a particular kind of force.
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Questions to ask yourself when looking at NARRATIVE
•
Is the poem divided into sections? Do these correspond to shifts in the development of the story or
the argument? How does the poet manage the transitions between them?
•
What tenses are used here? Is there a dominant tense, or a mixture? What does this tell me about
the poem?
•
Which pronouns are used? Is this text broadly first, second or third person? Or is it a mixture?
•
From what viewpoint is the story told? Where would the camera be if the poem were filmed? Does
the viewpoint change?
•
Is it clear what kind of sequence this is - narration, argument, description?
•
Which are the key connectives? What do they tell me about the way the poem develops?
•
What questions does the poet ask? What questions are left for the reader to ask?
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Thinking about culture and (other) cultures
The National Curriculum for English requires all pupils to ‘compare and evaluate a range of
representations of individuals and groups in different historical, social and cultural contexts’, and to
incorporate an ‘Asia focus’. In effect, you are expected to study texts 'from other cultures and
traditions'.
This section of the Assignment Unit looks briefly at the meanings of those words and of some of the
other words that come to mind when we start to think about culture, tradition or 'otherness'.
The four poets featured in this Assignment Unit belong to or ‘identify’ as being members of a variety
of nations and ethnic groups; they have also written poems which, in various ways, invite us to think
about culture and identity. So these following pages point to themes which will recur throughout
this Assignment Unit, and will – hopefully – function as a kind of introductory thesaurus.
Clearly, in order to respond to and engage with the poems you need to understand the cultural
background. This will help you to develop a clearer understanding of the similarities and differences
between the poems. It will develop your awareness of how a poem such as Search For My Tongue
explores the question of language - either the experience of having two different languages or of
speaking non-standard English - and how Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan reflects on people's
experience of living in one culture but having roots in another.
As well as enabling you to see stronger links between poems, your knowledge and understanding of
a poem's cultural context will help you to a greater understanding of its meaning, structure and
language. Awareness of cultural context can lead you to a better understanding of the meaning,
structure and language of the poem.
The material offered is by no means ‘prescriptive’ – the intention is that you employ this material as
a way and means of developing your own understandings and insights. In any case, there is no point
in my encouraging you to employ and apply language and concepts if you are not confident and
comfortable with their meaning(s).
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CULTURE • TRADITION • HERITAGE
A CULTURE is a way of life, and a way of thinking about the world, which is characteristic of a
particular group. In its oldest sense, the word is related to 'agriculture', and means anything which
grows and is tended over time. Later, by a kind of metaphor, it comes to imply 'cultivation' in a
different sense - an educated refinement of manners and artistic taste. In this sense, the word
becomes laden with particular values and preferences - associated with 'high culture', for example,
rather than 'low' or popular culture. But in modern usage, 'culture' refers to the whole complex of
thought and behaviour characteristic of a people - everything from their basic religious beliefs and
values through to changing preferences of fashion or lifestyle. A further complication is that in many
cultures we can distinguish between a dominant mainstream and various kinds of subcultural
groups, including those who are pushing to develop the culture in new ways, and those who still
cling to how it used to be in the past.
TRADITIONS are those parts of a culture which have been handed on from the past, and maintained
into the present, and include both the things people do and the things they remember or believe to
be true. Traditional practices often survive most strongly in the context of craft skills and in the
ceremonies surrounding religious belief. Traditions also take the form of stories and legends which
are passed on orally through generations. Traditions are not always fixed; they can and do change
when subject to internal and / or external forces or factors.
TRADITIONS can be a source of stability and strength in a culture, but they can also be a brake on
development, so to call someone 'a traditionalist' may imply they are too attached to old ways,
especially in contexts that call for a different way of thinking.
The word HERITAGE also refers to something handed on from the past. Its origin is from the word
'inheritance', but here the emphasis tends to be on objects or places of value rather than ways of
doing things. 'Our cultural heritage' includes lists of buildings or landscapes which should be
preserved, classic works of art and anything valued for its age and rarity. The phrase 'the English
literary heritage' is used to refer to a list of authors officially considered to represent the best of
English writing, particularly writing before the year 1900.
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IDENTITY • ROOTS • BELIEFS
Most of the poetry in this Assignment Unit is concerned in some way with the question of IDENTITY.
Identity is a complex notion because people define themselves both in terms of the groups to which
they belong, and also sometimes in opposition to those groups. Another complication is that people
belong simultaneously to a number of different kinds of group: by birth to an ethnic community; by
passport to a nation; by faith and upbringing to a religion, or to no religion; by wealth and education
to a particular social class and by various kinds of preference to a whole range of other possible
categories.
Language is one of the strongest of these sources of identification. The mother tongue links children
to the world of their parents and carries its own set of values and ways of seeing things. Local
dialects foster a sense of local belonging, just as the adoption of unfamiliar forms of slang, jargon or
accent (or a new language altogether) can mark someone's transfer to a different subcultural group.
The term 'ROOTS' is widely used to refer to the way personal identity can be rooted in, and nurtured
by, an awareness or rediscovery of historical origins. It's a powerful metaphor, linking the natural
history of blood ties and 'the family tree' to a sense of origin in the soil of a particular homeland.
Sometimes that land is a nation, a motherland; sometimes it is simply a certain kind of landscape. To
be rooted in this sense is to know family loyalty, to take pride in ethnicity, to honour ancestors.
The commitment to ROOTS may be particularly powerful in those cases where these connections
have been, in some way, attacked or suppressed.
In addition, at the core of each person's identity are their BELIEFS, both what they believe to be the
case, and what they 'believe in' in a different sense - the values they personally hold to be
important. To call something a 'belief' implies that there are others who see things differently. When
someone's personal values come into conflict with those of the cultural group to which they
otherwise belong, they find themselves in a situation of dissent, and dissent can easily be perceived
as betrayal.
A 'radical' is, literally, someone who attacks the roots.
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MIGRATION • OTHERNESS • DIVERSITY
The cultural complexity of the modern world has resulted from a number of historical processes.
One is the redrawing of political boundaries through conquest or colonisation so that even when
staying where they are, people find themselves a part of somewhere else. A second process, which
has often followed the first, is that of MIGRATION, either from economic need or to escape political
persecution. 'Emigration' refers to this experience from the perspective of the person who is leaving,
usually in the hope of finding something better in a new world. 'Immigration' is the same process
seen from the perspective of the receiving nation. Following disasters or atrocities, huge numbers of
people may become involuntary migrants or refugees. Historically, the most far-reaching example of
uprooting has been the enforced migration of the slave trade, which over the course of two
centuries resulted in the transfer of several million people from Africa to the Americas.
Both the moving of boundaries, and the moving of peoples, results in the creation of minorities
whose roots are somewhere other than where they live. The immediate experience of refugees or
economic migrants is of displacement and dispossession, often with a wrenching sense of loss and
exile. Over time, the choice for each generation is to find a balance between assimilation into the
majority culture, ultimately through intermarriage, and nurturing the roots of the old 'home' culture,
maintaining separate enclaves, and so continuing to be perceived as 'OTHER' by the host
community.
In the wider context, the word 'other' can thus be used to imply 'alien' with all its connotations of
isolation, hostility and rejection. (People can, of course, feel 'alienated' by aspects of their own
culture.)
This is the sense of otherness that leads to intolerance - where the notion of a person's 'identity' is
based on negative perceptions of what people are not. The spirit of nationalism, for example, is
often characterised by antagonism to people of neighbouring states. Racism is the rejection and
persecution of others, based chiefly on differences of skin colour. Adopted as state policy, it takes
forms of systematic injustice: apartheid (in South Africa) and segregation (in the USA and elsewhere)
are prominent twentieth-century examples. A third 'ism' of this kind is sectarianism, in which
differences of religious faith lead to fanatical hatred both within and between religions, and to the
often murderous overriding of human rights.
History has shown, and continues to show, that what begins as private prejudice and hostility can
grow into large scale oppression and persecution. In the multiracial and multicultural communities
which characterise so much of the contemporary world, 'otherness' need not mean hostility and
struggle. A commitment to DIVERSITY, based on equality of respect, is not just the toleration of
differences, but their celebration as a source of personal and cultural enrichment.
20
Glossary
The following (contextualized) definitions are provided so that you can further develop your ability
to deploy language and terminology to adequately and effectively construct and convey qualified
interpretations and insights regarding poets and poetry.
These are words and meanings that you are expected to know and apply.
alliteration: the repetition of initial letters in words next to, or near each other, to create a sound
effect, for example: 'From pillar to post a pantomime'. Most often a consonant.
ambiguity: words and lines can sometimes suggest more than one interpretation, or meaning:
poems are sometimes shaped so that their meaning is deliberately ambiguous, or uncertain, for
example, Blessing.
antithesis: see contrasting pairs.
assonance: the repetition of vowel sounds to create internal rhyming within phrases or sentences.
colloquial expressions: popular words and phrases which can be found in everyday conversation.
This aspect of language is often linked to region, culture, historical period or occupation, for
example: 'Pick a card, any card' is a conjuring expression.
contrasting pairs: pairs of lines which draw attention to contradiction, disagreement, unfairness, or
injustice. They are often used in speeches to persuade people of the rightness of an argument. See
also pattern of three.
couplets: pairs of lines which are often rhymed.
dialect: a particular version of a language with its own distinctive accent, grammar and vocabulary.
Dialects are shaped by region and culture (see Search For My Tongue).
imagery: the descriptive language used to create a particular picture, feeling, or mood in the
reader's imagination.
metaphor: a particular kind of image, which describes something as though it were something else.
For example, a carpenter's knuckles could described as 'silver knobs of nails'. A line like this works in
two ways; it evokes the work-worn hands of the carpenter and the polished highlights of his skin,
but it also suggests the nails which he hammers into the wood and the shine on them, created by
the hammering. In an extended metaphor, the comparison is developed over the course of the
poem (for example, the plant in Search For My Tongue).
mood: the atmosphere of a poem and the feelings which it evokes. Some of the sound patterns and
images of a poem could, for example, evoke bitterness, energy and anger. Regular stanza lengths in
a poem could help to reinforce a mood of cold fury and conviction, if supported by other techniques.
21
narrator: the speaker, the person who tells what happens in a poem or a story. The narrator's views
and experiences may be those of the poet, but it would be a mistake to assume that this is always
the case.
onomatopoeia: the sound of an onomatopoeic word helps to suggest what it describes or means,
for example 'splash' or ‘plonk’.
pattern of three: these are often used in speeches to persuade people of the rightness of an
argument. They are usually constructed by giving three successive examples of something to drive a
point home. Repetition of some of the same words in each example helps to create the pattern. See
also contrasting pairs.
personification: a type of metaphor where an animal, object or abstract idea is described as though
it were human (see An Old Woman). This can help make what is being described 'come to life' but it
can also be used to suggest how closely people and things might be related to each other.
puns: sometimes called a play on words, a pun is any word or expression which allows the poet to
create more than one meaning. Puns can also be created by using words which have similar sounds
but different meanings.
rhyme: words that have a matching sound quality. Poems sometimes have rhyming words within the
lines (internal rhyme) instead of, or as well as, at the end of them.
rhyme scheme: the pattern in which rhyming sounds occur within a poem.
simile: the direct comparison of one thing with another. For example, Moniza Alvi describes her
traditional dress, a salwar kameez, as 'glistening like an orange split open' (Presents From My Aunt
In Pakistan). Most similes make the comparison by using the words 'as' or 'like'.
sound pattern: this is a general term which refers to any words or lines where sounds are repeated
to create a mood, a feeling, or the noises of everyday life, for example: 'hit, hurt and flattened'. In
this line, repetition of the soft, consonant letters h, f and t combines with a succession of three short
vowel sounds to suggest the quick, short, intakes of breath and the accompanying effort as the
carpenter with knuckles described as 'silver knobs of nails' hammers the nails home.
stanza: poems are often organized into groups of lines called stanzas or verses.
syllable: the basic sound unit of a word : 'flat' has one syllable; 'flattened' has two.
tone: the attitude of the poem, for example; serious, humorous, or sarcastic.
voice: the voice of a poem helps to suggest its mood, attitude and purpose. Essentially, it can be
defined as the way we might choose to express the words and lines, were we to read the poem out
loud.
vowel sounds: the letters a, e, i, o, u are called vowels. The remaining letters of the alphabet are
called consonants. It is difficult to define the 'length' of vowel sounds without taking into account
the consonants placed next to them; if you are able to 'sing' or sustain a vowel sound, it is 'long'; if
the vowel sound allows you to speak it abruptly, it is 'short'.
22
Part 2:
Poetry from Other Cultures
and Traditions Anthology
23
Sujata Bhatt: Search For My Tongue
Sujata Bhatt was born in 1956 in Ahmedabad, India, where her mother tongue (first language) was
Gujarati. When she was still an infant, her family moved to Pune (or Poona), near Bombay, where
the official language is Marathi. Sujata then spent three years in New Orleans, USA where she first
learned English. On returning to Pune, aged eight, she attended an English-speaking school. In 1968,
her family moved permanently to America, where she attended high school and university. While
studying Creative Writing at the University of Iowa, she met her German husband, with whom she
moved to Bremen, in northern Germany, in 1987.
Her first book of poems, Brunizem, was published in England in 1988. (The word 'brunizem' is the
name of a prairie soil found in Asia, Europe and North America.) She has chosen to write poems in
English, rather than Gujarati. But a number of her poems, including this Search for my Tongue, are
written in both languages. This poem is part of a longer poem (also called Search for my Tongue),
written when she was studying English at university in America, and began to be 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.'
Sujata Bhatt introduces her work
It's strange for me to consider Bremen as home, but in a way it is. When I visit my parents or my
brother, I think of myself when I was younger and I lived there, but I don't think I really consider that
as home either. I have always thought of myself as an Indian who is outside India, and I would find it
difficult to say I'm not Indian because for me that would mean disowning my parents. That's the
deepest layer of my identity. Then I think identity can change according to where you live, and I think
of myself as having attachments to several cultures, so in that sense, several identities. I don't think
identity is something static. On a simple level, one's identity becomes different if one is a mother and
things like that.
I think I'm fairly adaptable. In America there are many communities where Indians seem to be very
segregated because they isolate themselves and have their own activities, which is fine, but I feel
some of them don't interact with the society they're living in. I'm someone who likes to know where I
am and I tend to be curious about other people...
I started writing poems and short stories when I was eight. I like to experiment and I like to try
different ways of writing and different subjects. I see myself as an Indian poet who's been influenced
by American and British literature. I write mainly in English. A lot of Gujarati poetry is very traditional
- the forms are strict, and it's a lot easier to rhyme in Gujarati. And in many of the north Indian
languages, like Hindi and Bengali also, the literary language is very elevated. In twentieth -century
British and American poetry, the language has become increasingly closer to the language of
everyday speech.
24
I wrote Search for my Tongue long ago when I was twenty-two, so of course, in many ways it's a
young person's poem and I think it explores feelings that I had that were very strong at that time. I
wrote it when I was in Baltimore, in the USA, and at that time I was reading a lot of Gujarati and also
English for university, and sometimes I would be thinking in two languages, and this poem grew out
of that. And earlier, when I was about thirteen, and we had just been in America for a few months, I
had written a poem in which I used a Gujarati word, and the teacher told me you can't use Gujarati in
an English poem – only French or Spanish or Italian ... And, of course, at that age, I just said 'Oh well'
and I never tried it again. And then by the time I was twenty-two, I had read T S Eliot, and in his
Waste Land he used Sanskrit words, so I felt, well, I could too. The poem was written very quickly. It
was really a case where everything just flowed, and afterwards there was very little that I changed...
Lines 31-38 are a rough translation of lines 17-30. In English the word 'tongue' can mean 'language'
and the tongue in your mouth, but in Gujarati it doesn't, so I have to use both words in the Gujarati the word 'jeebh' is tongue, and then the word 'bhasha' is language. In Gujarati I have to say, 'like a
fruit my language, my tongue, ripens in my mouth'. The stanza in English is slightly different...
From a recorded BBC interview, Bremen, Germany, June 1998
25
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,
(munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)
(may thoonky nakhi chay)
(parantoo rattray svupnama man bhasha pachi aavay chay)
(foolnee jaim man bhasha man jeebh)
(modhama kheelay chay)
(fullnee jaim man bhasha man jeebh)
(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.
26
A Different History
Great Pan is not dead;
he simply emigrated
to India.
Here, the gods roam freely,
disguised as snakes or monkeys;
every tree is sacred
and it is a sin
to be rude to a book.
It is a sin to shove a book aside
with your foot,
a sin to slam books down
hard on a table,
a sin to toss one carelessly
across a room.
You must learn how to turn the pages gently
without disturbing Sarasvati,
without offending the tree
from whose wood the paper was made.
2
Which language
has not been the oppressor's tongue?
Which language
truly meant to murder someone?
And how does it happen that after the torture,
after the soul has been cropped
with a long scythe swooping out
of the conqueror's face the unborn grandchildren
grow to love that strange language.
NOTE
Search for my Tongue:
The material in brackets ( ) is a phonetic transcription of the modified Devanagari script which is used to write
Gujrati and other Asian languages that appears above each line in the original published piece.
A Different History:
Great Pan: Greek nature god (cf. pantheism)
Sarasvati: Hindu goddess of knowledge
27
The Voices
First, a sound from an animal
you can never imagine
Then: insect-rustle, fish-hush.
And then the voices became louder.
Voice of an angel who is newly dead.
Voice of a child who refuses
to ever become an angel with wings.
Voice of tamarinds.
Voice of the colour blue.
Voice of the colour green.
Voice of the worms.
Voice of the white roses.
Voice of the leaves torn by goats.
Voice of snake-spit.
Voice of the fetal heartbeat.
Voice of the scalped skull
whose hair hangs behind glass
in a museum.
I used to think there was
only one voice.
I used to wait
patiently for that one voice to return
to begin its dictation.
I was wrong.
I can never finish counting them now.
I can never finish
writing all they have to say.
Voice of the ghost who wants
to die again, but this time
in a brighter room with fragrant flowers
and different relatives.
Voice of the frozen lake.
Voice of the fog.
Voice of the air while it snows.
Voice of the girl
who still sees unicorns
and speaks to angels she knows by name.
Voice of pine tree sap.
And then the voices became louder.
Sometimes I hear them
laughing at my confusion.
And each voice insists
and each voice knows
that it is the true one.
And each voice says: follow me
follow me and I will take you -
28
At the Flower Market
When we go to the flower market,
my daughter and I,
it's only to look around
not to buy.
For me it's to look at her
six-month-old face while she stares
at the colours and smells
the sour oozing of cut stems
the sweet soil of potted plants.
So many different leaves thrown together,
petals ruffled and fanning out so
even the least fragrant flowers are fragrant.
The lilies fighting giant sunflowers
for attention; rows of herbs arranged
beside tall ficus benjamins.
Today I stop by the expensive hibiscus
and bougainvillea, imprisoned
in plastic pots they sit like laboratory specimens
because this is Bremen.
In Poona
our bougainvillea bush
had grown to the size of an elephant.
The mauve bracts surrounding the flowers
would fly in the wind
like a thousand miniature paper kites.
And the hibiscus, so abundant,
those red trumpets with tongues
like golden worms curling out.
Still, I go by every stall in Bremen's
city centre flower market –
for no reason
except to watch my daughter's face open,
her confused curiosity
that makes me plan journeys.
NOTE
At the Flower Market:
Bremen: German city where the poet lives
Poona: Indian city of the poet’s childhood
29
Moniza Alvi: Presents From My Aunts In Pakistan
Moniza Alvi was born in Lahore, in Pakistan in 1954, the daughter of a Pakistani father and an English
mother. She moved to England when she was a few months old. She didn't revisit Pakistan for many
years. She returned later to visit relatives and to revisit her past. She studied English at the
University of York and later qualified as a teacher. She now lives in London where she has taught
English. Presents from my aunts in Pakistan is from Moniza Alvi's first collection, The Country at My
Shoulder. A second collection, A Bowl of Warm Air, appeared in 1996. She revisited Pakistan for the
first time in 1993.
Moniza Alvi has commented that: “'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 thirteen. 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.”
In this poem Moniza Alvi writes about two cultures - the Asian culture she has left behind in
Pakistan, and her present life in London. Presents of Asian clothing sent by relatives in Pakistan
remind her of her roots but also add to her confusion. Her relatives in Pakistan request gifts of
western clothing - cardigans from Marks and Spencers (the British equivalent of David Jones) - which
highlights the irony and the confusion.
Moniza AIvi introduces her work
I was born in Lahore, in Pakistan, in 1954. My father is from Pakistan originally, and my mother's
English - they met when my father was in England on an apprenticeship. They went back to Pakistan,
but eventually decided to return to England. I came here when I was a few months old, to Hatfield in
Hertfordshire.
I never actually learned my father's language, which I've always been a bit sad about. But I think it
sometimes happens that if it's the father's language, contact with fathers often being a bit more
remote, it's not always passed on.
Growing up, I felt that my origins were invisible, because there weren't many people to identify with
in Hatfield at that time of a mixed race background or, indeed, from any other race, so I felt there
was a bit of a blank drawn over that. Although as a child, of course, I was quite happy to be thought
of as just the same as everybody else. I was brought up in the Church of England. My father's religion
is Muslim, but he wasn't a practising Muslim. I think I had a fairly typically English 1950s/60s
upbringing. Then I went to York University and after that a teacher training course in London - I've
taught for twenty years in London schools. I didn't revisit Pakistan until 1993.
30
Maybe I don't consider anywhere as entirely home, and that's an effect of having been born in a
different country, and having some connections with it. When I eventually went to Pakistan, I
certainly didn't feel that was home - I'd never felt so English. And also my father seemed very English
there, which surprised me. But I never feel entirely at home in England, and of course, I'm not part of
the Asian community at all. And it feels a bit odd sometimes that because of the group of poems that
I've written about my Asian background, I sometimes tend to be identified as a black writer. I tend to
think of England as being very culturally mixed now.
I suppose I would define identity very broadly in terms of what you do, what you respect, and maybe
something deeper, your spirit. But it's important to know where you come from, which is perhaps
what I was lacking as a child. I think it's important to know what has gone into your making, even
quite far back, I think it gives you a sense perhaps of richness. And 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.
I'm attracted by the visual: I think that's quite a strong thing in the poetry. And I always read my
poems aloud to myself a lot while I'm writing them, and afterwards. Looking back you can sometimes
feel that something is very much in your own voice, or maybe hasn't worked so well because it's not. I
feel that the poems in the Presents from Pakistan section in The Country at my Shoulder are probably
quite strongly in my voice. I suppose I found a subject there that was very much my subject and I
think that helps. For example, say, having a baby's very special to you, but it's also very special in
somewhat similar ways to everybody else. Maybe I felt I had something here that I hadn't really read
about, and that felt particular to me, and that fired me.
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. It's fairly true, it's fairly autobiographical. The girl in the poem would be me at
about thirteen. 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. It did start off written in blocks in
conventional stanzas like big bricks, but I felt it needed to look more lively, and also that it had a lot
of individual images which I wanted to give more individual weight to, and I thought this was a way
of doing it. It seems to go a bit all over the place and perhaps that's how she's feeling, a bit
disoriented.
From a recorded BBC interview, London, June 1998
31
Presents from my aunts in Pakistan
They sent me a salwar kameez
peacock-blue,
and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, bold 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.
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.
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.
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.
My salwar kameez
didn’t impress the schoolfriend
32
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 on a cot
in my English grandmother’s dining-room,
found myself alone,
playing with a tin boat.
I pictured my birthplace
from fifties’ photographs.
When I was older
there was a 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.
Or there were beggars, sweeper-girls
and I was there
of no fixed nationality,
staring through fretwork
at the Shalimar Gardens.
NOTE
Presents from my aunts in Pakistan:
salwar kameez: loose trousers and tunic, traditionally worn by Pakistani women
Lahore: poet’s birthplace in Pakistan
Shalimar Gardens: ornamental park in Lahore
33
The Sari
Inside my mother
I peered through a glass porthole.
The world beyond was hot and brown.
They were all looking in on me Father, Grandmother,
the cook's boy, the sweeper-girl,
the bullock with the sharp
shoulderblades,
the local politicians.
My English grandmother
took a telescope
and gazed across continents.
All the people unravelled a sari.
It stretched from Lahore to Hyderabad,
wavered across the Arabian Sea,
shot through with stars,
fluttering with sparrows and quails.
They threaded it with roads,
undulations of land.
Eventually
they wrapped and wrapped me in it
whispering Your body is your country
NOTE
The Sari:
Hyderabad: city in central India
34
Throwing out my Father’s Dictionary
Words grow shoots in the bin
with the eggshells and rotting froot.
It’s years since the back fell off
to reveal paper edged with toffee-glue.
The preface is stained – a cloud rises
towards the use of the swung dash.
My father’s signature is centre page,
arching letters underlined – I see him
rifling through his second language.
I retrieve it.
It smells of tarragon – my father’s
dictionary, not quite finished with.
I have my own, weightier
with thousands of entries
arranged for me – like chador
and sick building syndrome
in the new wider pages.
I daren’t inscribe my name.
NOTE
Throwing out my Father’s Dictionary:
swung dash (-): form of abbreviation used in dictionaries
chador: shawl worn in northern India
35
Imtiaz Dharker: Blessing
lmtiaz Dharker was born in 1954 in Lahore, Pakistan, to a Muslim family. She grew up in Glasgow,
where she obtained an MA in English Literature and Philosophy. Her first book of poetry, Purdah
(1989) explores the condition of Muslim womanhood, and some of the tensions associated with
living across cultures. She now lives in Bombay, India, where she works as an artist and film-maker.
During the dry season, the temperature can reach 40 degrees. The poem Blessing is set in a vast area
of temporary accommodation called Dharavi, on the outskirts of Bombay, where millions of migrants
have gathered from other parts of India. Because it is not an official living area, there is always a
shortage of water.
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 in the
village they've come 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.'
lmtiaz Dharker introduces her work
Could you tell us something about your background?
I was born in Lahore, in Pakistan, in 1954. I came to Scotland when I was a year old so I don't
remember anything of Lahore from that time. I went to school in Glasgow. The school was a very
strict girls' school - crepe stockings, hats with pins, box-pleated skirts, it was dreadful. Then Glasgow
University.
My father and mother wanted us to have the very best education. At the same time, you know how it
is, immigrant family, they did not want me to go out with boys, and I was quite keen to keep my
cultural base. I didn't eat pork, I didn't drink, I tried within my own limitations to be a good Muslim,
partly because I saw that not in religious terms but in cultural terms, and I saw that as quite
important. I did know that I wanted to return to the sub-continent, I thought Pakistan at that time.
But what I hadn't bargained for was that I'd meet someone who was an Indian Hindu - and being a
Pakistani Muslim this was a serious offence. So I eloped, and went to India.
It was something my parents never accepted, and I didn't see them then for the next ten years. I met
my father years later and I had to go up to him and he didn't recognise me. I had to say 'I'm Imtiaz,
your daughter'. He does meet us now.
36
Where do you think of as home?
I live in Bombay, that's the place I live and work in, and the reason I'm in India is because I married
an Indian. And it has become home now. I wasn't sure for a very long time if it was home, but it is
now. Though sometimes I feel as if writers don't have homes, that I belong in the cracks between
countries, and the spaces left over by other people, and I actually, maybe in some ways, prefer it that
way. I don't necessarily want to belong to anyone or anything.
Do you write in any other language than English?
No, I don't. English is really my first language. I would love to write in Urdu, but I think that might be
a different kind of poetry, you know. I also speak Punjabi, and Marathi, which is my husband's family
language. And French and German.
What does 'identity' mean to you?
For me, my identity has nothing to do with nationality, or religion, or gender. It has to do with beliefs
and states of mind. So, for me, identity is not about boundaries and restrictions and rules.
My daughter has always said, I'm half Hindu and half Muslim, and has thrown everyone. She
certainly grew up celebrating the Hindu festivals, especially with her Hindu grandmother. Now what
we do is celebrate everything. We celebrate Christmas, we celebrate Easter, we celebrate Ganpati
and we definitely celebrate anything that involves fun and happiness.
What things are you most interested in writing about?
The narrowing of minds and the opening of minds. Windows opening or not opening, the whole
feeling of private spaces and outer spaces, the fragility of what we construct around us, the fragility
of the human body and of the structures we use to hold our pride and our sense of ourselves. In
Bombay, everything is falling down, every building is held up with sellotape and string, all of India
seems to be collapsing. And then, of course, you get from that to the whole question of temples and
mosques having been brought down, what happens when people begin to break each others'
structures. Those are the things I'm struggling with.
Is there anything that seems to you to give your poems a distinctive style?
My first instinct when I'm writing and when I'm saying the poems aloud is always to get into a kind of
iambic rhythm, so what I begin to do then is to break the rhyme, break the rhythm, break it
internally. So I take it very much from spoken rhythms, but at the same time I'm trying to do some
bouncing off. I'm really talking about the rhythms of my spoken word, which might be different from
the rhythms of someone else's.
37
What is the particular background of Blessing?
The scene is very specifically in the largest slum in Asia, which is Dharavi, on the outskirts of Bombay,
where there are millions of little huts. Bombay is the city of dreams; Bombay is where everyone hopes
the pavements are lined with gold. They've come from all over India. They are migrants to the city;
they come in there for a better life and they're living in conditions which to anyone else would look
squalid but to them it really is the hope of a better life.
And because it is not an official living area, there is a shortage of water. Bombay can go to forty
degrees or more - when the monsoon eventually comes it is a great release then, of course, all the
children will be out, even in the floods they will be out playing. 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 in the village they've come 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.
From a recorded BBC interview, London, August 1998
38
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 children
screaming in the liquid sun,
their highlights polished to perfection,
flashing light,
as the blessing sings
over their small bones.
39
Living space
There are just not enough
straight lines. That
is the problem.
Nothing is flat
or parallel. Beams
balance crookedly on supports
thrust off the vertical.
Nails clutch at open seams.
The whole structure leans dangerously
towards the miraculous.
Into this rough frame,
someone has squeezed
a living space
and even dared to place
these eggs in a wire basket,
fragile curves of white
hung out over the dark edge
of a slanted universe,
gathering the light
into themselves,
as if they were
the bright, thin walls of faith.
One breath
All it would take
is one slammed door
to make the whole thing
fall. One bottle hurled
against a wall,
to start the hammering
on the heart
and crack
the body’s shell.
One sneeze, one cough,
one doubt.
All it would take
is one breath,
no more.
40
Arun Kolatkar: An Old Woman
Arun Kolatkar was born in Kolhapur, India, in 1932. He trained first as a painter, then as a graphic
artist; he has spent most of his working life as a graphic designer in an advertising agency in Bombay.
Kolatkar has published one book of poems in English, an extended sequence called Jejuri (1976),
which won the Commonwealth poetry prize in 1977. He writes also in the Indian language, Marathi,
and has translated his own work from one language to another.
Jejuri describes a pilgrimage or tourist visit to the Hindu temple town of that name, near Pune (or
Poona), in West Maharashtra, one of the Earth's oldest landscapes. The poems are linked not so
much by a narrative thread as by a kind of montage technique: Kolatkar has commented that his first
impulse had been to make a movie. Jejuri deals playfully with the improbabilities of Hindu legend
and beliefs, but also with the mysteriousness of the everyday world.
Introducing Arun Kolatkar's work
"Arun is a bilingual poet. He writes in Marathi, his mother tongue, and in English, which is
everybody's - it's an interesting thing that by the year 2010, the largest number of people using
English will be in India, even more than in the United States. Arun is also a bi-cultural person. He has
his English language culture and his Marathi language culture, and he fuses these two sources.
He puts a great value on his privacy. In Arun's case, it's only his poems that are public - that's the
only public face he has. I remember him saying once, 'Criticism is for me a barbed wire fence.' So
critics are always beyond the fence. He wants to stay on his own side of it. It's as though he's saying,
'Let my work speak - I won't speak for it.'
Although Arun did not continue as a painter, his painterly eye can be seen in his poems. He wants
every image to be absolutely clear - the visual aspect of his poems is often the leading aspect. He
works through sound as well, but often the thing that hits you first is a startling image.
Jejuri is about a journey to a place of pilgrimage. In the poem you have sketches of encounters with
people, anecdotes, legends. He's looking at the idea of a pilgrimage, though Arun himself is not a
pilgrim, he's not a devotee, he's not even a believer. Arun is an urban man, a contemporary man. His
poems have a warmth, expressed through humour. He knows the absurdities and the limitations of
human nature, and he sympathises with those. The poem is like a journey into his own people's past.
These poems take you to imaginary places. You have to imagine a lot, you have to recreate the place
through the words of the poem - so half the contribution has to be from the reader's side, from the
reader's imagination.''
From a recorded interview with Dilip Chitrie, September 1998.
41
An Old Woman
An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.
She wants a fifty paise coin.
She says she will take you
to the horseshoe shrine.
You've seen it already.
She hobbles along anyway
and tightens her grip on your shirt.
She won't let you go.
You know how old women are.
They stick to you like a burr.
You turn around and face her
with an air of finality.
You want to end the farce.
When you hear her say,
'What else can an old woman do
on hills as wretched as these?'
You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.
And as you look on,
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.
And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls
with a plateglass clatter
around the shatter proof crone
who stands alone.
And you are reduced
to so much small change
in her hand.
42
The Horseshoe Shrine
That nick in the rock
is really a kick in the side of the hill.
It's where a hoof
struck
like a thunderbolt
when Khandoba
with the bride sidesaddle behind him on the blue
horse
jumped across the valley
and the three
went on from there like one
spark
fleeing from flint.
To a home that waited
on the other side of the hill like a hay
stack.
43
Part 3:
Focus Poems and Activities
44
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,
(munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha)
(may thoonky nakhi chay)
(parantoo rattray svupnama man bhasha pachi aavay chay)
(foolnee jaim man bhasha man jeebh)
(modhama kheelay chay)
(fullnee jaim man bhasha man jeebh)
(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.
45
Exploring the poem
LANGUAGE
1.
The first thing to strike the reader is the inclusion of lines written in Gujerati. They are
printed in the poem in the modified Devanagari script which is used to write Gujerati
and other Asian languages.
The lines in Gujerati mean:
I felt as if I had spat out my tongue and whole language
Because, at night in the dream, my language returns
Like a flower - my language, my tongue, b lossoms in the mouth.
Like a flower my language, my tongue, ripens in the mouth.
These lines obviously reflect the ideas in the rest of the poem.
2.
The poet compares her mother tongue – the language of her birth - with a plant, a
living thing, which grows and blossoms.
COMMENTS
1.
This poem is from a collection of Sujata Bhatt's poems called Brunizem (published
1988). Brunizem is a dark prairie soil which is found in Asia, Europe and North
America. Sujata Bhatt's probing interest in the languages and places which have
defined her is reflected in the title of her book. Sujata Bhatt has lived in India, America
and Germany.
2.
The different cultural strands which have influenced Sujata Bhatt are visually present in the
typography of the poem - the Roman and Devanagari scripts (not reproduced above)
make us see the cultural differences which have defined the poet.
3.
The phonetic representation of the Gujerati sounds placed under the Devanagari script
introduces a new element. Our minds attempt to sound out the alien words. We start
to experience the duality of the two languages and the cultures which they define.
4.
The Gujerati section of the poem inhabits the dream of the English section. In the first
part of the poem Sujata Bhatt explored the possibility that she had lost touch with her
mother tongue, Gujerati. She had thought that it had died in her mouth and she had,
metaphorically, spat it out. At line 16 she introduced the dream image which is
immediately interrupted by the sudden burst of Gujerati. The sentence and the theme
broken off in line 16 are picked up again at line 31. The thought runs seamlessly from
16 to 31: “but overnight while I dream / it grows back, a stump of a shoot”. The mother
tongue comes back to life during the dream.
46
5.
The placing of the Gujerati text in the middle of the English text forces us to recognise
the coexistence of the two languages (and the cultural differences they represent).
We see the tensions on the page. In one sense the text on the page - the graphical
representation of language and thought - is like a picture - a visual demonstration of
two cultures.
SECTION A
1.
What does Sujata Bhatt mean when she refers (line 4) to "two tongues in your mouth"?
2.
What does the expression "mother tongue" mean?
3.
What reasons does the poet give in lines 1-16 for having lost her “mother tongue”?
4.
Re-read lines 31-8. What else are we told about her “mother tongue”?
5.
What does Sujata Bhatt say could happen if you have to live in a place where you speak
a language other than your own?
SECTION B
1.
This poem is from a collection of poems by Sujata Bhatt called Brunizem. Why do you
think the title of this book is particularly appropriate? Why do you think Sujata Bhatt
called her book Brunizem?
2.
Write about the way Sujata Bhatt includes a section of Gujerati in her poem. In your
answer address some or all of these points:

What effect does it have?

Is it confusing?

What visual effect does it have?

How does the meaning of the Gujerati fit in with the rest of the poem?

What do you do when you come to the Gujerati section? Do you try to read it
or do you just look at it.

Why do you think Sujata Bhatt included this section?

What would be lost if the Gujerati section was removed?

How does the use of Roman script and Devanagari script help to define the two
cultures?
47
3.
The poet develops her idea by using an extended metaphor (see glossary); she compares her
'tongue' to a plant.




4.
In what ways is the poet's original language like a plant?
How does the extended metaphor help you to understand the poet's point of view
about her original language?
What differences can you see between the way language is used in the first section
(lines 1-16) and in the last section (lines 31-8)?
Why, in line 37, does the poet use the phrase “the mother tongue” instead of “my
mother tongue”?
What does this poem say about the importance of language to a culture? To what extent
does it highlight the difficulties of being part of two cultures?
SECTION C
How is the poet's attitude towards her “mother tongue” developed in the poem? Write about:
•
•
•
her feelings about her original language, Gujerati
interesting features of the language she uses in the poem
how the shape of the poem helps her present her feelings.
48
Presents from my aunts in Pakistan
They sent me a salwar kameez
peacock-blue,
and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, bold 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.
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.
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.
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.
49
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 on a cot
in my English grandmother’s dining-room,
found myself alone,
playing with a tin boat.
I pictured my birthplace
from fifties’ photographs.
When I was older
there was a 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.
Or there were beggars, sweeper-girls
and I was there
of no fixed nationality,
staring through fretwork
at the Shalimar Gardens.
NOTE
Presents from my aunts in Pakistan:
salwar kameez: loose trousers and tunic, traditionally worn by Pakistani women
Lahore: poet’s birthplace in Pakistan
Shalimar Gardens: ornamental park in Lahore
50
Exploring the poem
LANGUAGE
1.
The poem is written in free verse, which means the lines are of different lengths and there is no rhyme scheme (see
glossary). The phrases are arranged loosely across the page. It is divided into seven stanzas of varying length.
2.
Moniza Alvi makes effective use of similes in the poem. The salwar kameez was "like an orange split open" - a very
rich comparison which suggests the colour and texture of the glistening silk. The colours in the shade on the table
lamp were "like stained glass".
COMMENTS
1.
Throughout her poetry Moniza Alvi considers her cultural origins and explores the tensions between her life in the
west and her awareness of her ethnic roots.
2.
Moniza Alvi is very skilled at creating snapshots of reality, small vignettes which give the reader a sudden snapshot
of a moment. We feel we are actually there as the young girl unwraps the presents from her aunts, as she sits in her
sitting-room in London and tries on the silken kameez. We feel close, almost like eavesdroppers, as the teenager sits
on the bed with her schoolfriend and they discuss clothes. These moments are given life and reality in Moniza Alvi's
nimble and evocative lines.
3.
In the sixth stanza the poet refers to her awareness of conflict in Pakistan. She refers to a "fractured land I
throbbing through newsprint".
Politically Pakistan is a relatively modern country. Under British colonial rule Pakistan was governed as part of India.
When India became independent in 1947 Pakistan was created as a separate Muslim state. Pakistan was divided.
East Pakistan (formerly East Bengal) was separated from West Pakistan by over one thousand miles of Indian
territory. Problems and tensions naturally occurred. Kashmir remained disputed territory, and in 1965 tensions
between India and Pakistan resulted in war. In 1971 East Pakistan broke away from West Pakistan and became the
independent state of Bangladesh. This background of conflict is referred to in Moniza Alvi's poem.
SECTION A
1.
The poem is in seven stanzas. Write seven short paragraphs, summarising in your own words what the poet says in
each stanza and how she develops ideas. Below you are provided with key words for each stanza. Use the key words as
the focus for your summaries.
The first one is done for you: Stanza 1 describes the beautifully coloured clothes sent to the girl. She shows that what is
fashionable in Pakistan changes just as it does in England.
Stanza One (lines 1-15)
Stanza Two (lines 16-26)
Stanza Three (lines 27-33)
Stanza Four (lines 34-39)
Stanza Five (lines 40-54)
Stanza Six (lines 55-64)
Stanza Seven (lines 65-69)
2.
aunts; presents; fashion
alien; half-English
lamp; cruelty; transformation
jewellery; cardigans
schoolfriend; mirror-work; sailed
birthplace; conflict; screened; presents
beggars; I; nationality
Write a paragraph describing the speaker's journey from Pakistan to England.
51
3.
The aunts in Pakistan send Asian clothing. What do the aunts ask for?
4.
What does the poet mean when she says (lines 61-62), "my aunts in shaded rooms I screened from male visitors"?
5.
Later in life the poet visited her birthplace, Pakistan. The poem we have was written after this visit. Write as much
as you can about the things the poet tells us about Pakistan.
SECTION B
1.
From the information and ideas you can find in the poem write as fully as you can about the two cultures described.
2.
The poet's feelings about her identity are complex. Write as fully as you can about the feelings expressed in the
poem. What are the reasons for her confusion? What does she want out of life? Why did she feel "alien" in her own
sitting-room?
3.
What strikes you most strongly about the way the clothes from Pakistan are described in the first stanza? How are
the colours described? Why are English things referred to in such an ordinary way? How does the England she
knows contrast to the “fractured land throbbing through newsprint” of Pakistan?
4.
At the end of the poem the speaker imagines herself there in Lahore - somewhere she has been only in her
thoughts. However, she is of “no fixed nationality”. She then imagines herself staring through fretwork at the
beautiful Shalimar Gardens. Why is this such an effective image to end on?
5.
Two cultures are contrasted in this poem. Several objects from the culture of Pakistan cross over into the girl's
world in England. Identify these objects. How does the girl respond to them?
6.
What view of Pakistan does the girl get from photographs and newspapers? In what ways does life for her aunts
seem different from life in England?
7.
Discuss the following statements, supporting your point of view with evidence from the poem.
•
•
•
the girl regrets ever leaving Pakistan
the girl feels sad that she has lost her Pakistani identity
the poem is a search for a true identity.
SECTION C
What does this poem have to say about living in one culture but having roots in another? Think about the ways of life as
well as objects.
52
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.
53
Exploring the poem
LANGUAGE
1.
The poem is in four sections or stanzas. The stanzas vary in length as do the lines within each
stanza. This free verse form is held firmly together by its tightly organised rhythms and the
subtle use of rhyme. The poet sometimes uses full rhymes (as in pod / god, ground / found /
around) and sometimes half rhymes (as in huts / pots, sings / bones).
2.
Notice the very effective simile in the opening line of the poem: "The skin cracks like a pod".
A range of feelings and ideas is evoked by this image - the dryness of parched skin, the
brittleness of a ripe seed pod - images which immediately make us remember our basic need
for water.
3.
Lines 3 - 6 beautifully convey the idea of the drip of water into a mug. The lines are short and
the short, largely monosyllabic words are distributed out in even parcels - like drops of
water. The metallic clang (see glossary: onomatopoeia) of words like "drip" "splash" "tin"
"mug" mimic the dropping of the water.
4.
There are two very effective metaphors in the poem.
(a) “silver crashes to the ground" - a lovely visual picture of the brilliant sun
glinting on the spray of water making it look like silver
(b) the metaphor "liquid sun" develops the visual image introduced in line 9
COMMENTS
1. The burst water main provides a sudden source of fun - at least for the children. Water,
however, is precious. Although the adults can quickly collect water free for their immediate
needs and the children can play in it, valuable water is running away from the burst pipe.
2. The title of the poem is revealing. Water is not to be taken for granted. It is a blessing. A
blessing is something which brings joy and happiness but it also has religious overtones. If you
bless something you consecrate it, praise its holiness. This religious sense is repeated in "the
voice of a kindly god" and in the use of the word "congregation" (line 12). The word
congregation simply means a gathering of people but the word also has a specialised meaning the gathering of people for the purpose of worship. The "blessing sings" at the end of the
poem in sacramental tones.
3.
lmtiaz Dharker is also a graphic artist. She often illustrates poems with black and white line
drawings. She now works as a film maker in India. This ability to see things in all their
immediacy and physicality is also evident in her poetry. The visual element in Blessing is very
prominent. The description is so vivid it could almost be the script for a scene in a film.
54
4.
The rush of activity after the pipe bursts is potently described. The longer lines at the
beginning of the third section of the poem give way to a sudden staccatto burst of energy in
the shorter lines which begin at line eleven. The hard, vigorous consonants - butts, pots, brass,
copper, plastic buckets - give energy to the description. The shortening lines build up to the
outburst of noise in the verb "screaming" placed for maximum effect at the beginning of the
line.
5.
The poem moves between sensual enjoyment of the vivid, lively scene to restrained comment
hinting at the social background. This is conveyed by more sombre images, as in the opening
line "The skin cracks like a pod" and the darker overtones of the final line which refers to
"their small bones". Fun there may be, but there is also deprivation and a constant struggle
against the environment. "There never is enough water".
SECTION A
1.
Write a paragraph explaining what happens in the poem.
2.
The poem opens with a striking image of dryness: The skin cracks like a pod. How does a pod
crack? What sort of skin/pod do you imagine here? What effect does this simile have on
you?
3.
Explain each of the following:
4.
(a)
silver crashes to the ground (line 9)
(b)
the flow has found / a roar of tongues (lines 10/11)
(c)
their highlights polished to perfection (line 20)
Look carefully at stanzas three and four. Does the poem distinguish between the responses
of the adults and the children to the burst pipe? If so, how?
SECTION B
1.
What impressions does the poem give you of the small town lmtiaz Dharker is describing in
the poem?
2.
Write about the way lmtiaz Dharker uses sound in the poem.
3.
lmtiaz Dharker is not only a writer. She is also a skilled artist and a film maker. How does this
poem illustrate the poet's sharp eye for visual detail?
4.
Why do you think lmtiaz Dharker refers to the burst water pipe as a "sudden rush of
fortune"? Why was it fortunate?
55
5.
Look at the length of the sentences. Why do you think the poet conveys some ideas in very
short sentences and some ideas in very long ones?
6.
Why do you think the poem is called Blessing?
SECTION C
This poem is impressionistic. The poet, in just a few lines, creates a sudden swift impression of the
small town and the bustle of activity.
Try to write something in a similar impressionistic style yourself. Choose a suitable subject - it
might be the scene at a busy street market or the frenetic preparations for a special occasion - and
try to capture the moment in a few lines of descriptive writing.
56
An Old Woman
An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.
She wants a fifty paise coin.
She says she will take you
to the horseshoe shrine.
You've seen it already.
She hobbles along anyway
and tightens her grip on your shirt.
She won't let you go.
You know how old women are.
They stick to you like a burr.
You turn around and face her
with an air of finality.
You want to end the farce.
When you hear her say,
'What else can an old woman do
on hills as wretched as these?'
You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.
And as you look on,
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.
And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls
with a plateglass clatter
around the shatter proof crone
who stands alone.
And you are reduced
to so much small change
in her hand.
57
Exploring the poem
LANGUAGE
1.
The poem consists of eleven three-line stanzas.
Although the lines are unequal in length (syllabically) for the most part they have three main
stresses.
Rhyme is not employed formally. The only full rhymes are at "crack / crack" and "crone / alone".
Alliteration and assonance, however, are used carefully throughout the poem. Notice, for
example, how carefully the sounds are organised in the first two stanzas:
"grabs" in line 1 chimes with "tags" in line 3.
"paise" in line 4 chimes with "says" in line 5.
The "Sh" sound at the beginning of lines 4 and five is picked up in "shrine" at
the end of line 6 (and again in "shirt" at the end of line 9).
"Coin" at the end of line 3 chimes with "shrine" at the end of line 6.
This careful organisation of sound is maintained throughout the poem and is used for thematic
effect.
The skilful use of alliteration adds to the finished texture of the poem. Notice, for example, the
way the letter "f' is manipulated in stanza 5 - face, finality, farce.
2.
The poem is written in the present tense. It makes the events more vivid, because it seems as if
they are being acted out before us, moment by moment.
3.
Although someone is telling us this story, there is no 'I' in the poem. The poem as a whole is
written in the second person. Think about the way the word “you” is used in the poem. It places
the reader in the situation of the tourist. Does it make you feel uncomfortable to be part of the
action like this?
4.
A change occurs at line 19, after the woman has spoken. Her question to the tourist is reported
in direct speech, to add to the impression that we are part of the scene.
“What else can an old woman do / On hills as wretched as these?”
From this point, the images are certainly not 'everyday' images any more. The language
becomes stronger and more dramatic. Something is being described which is hard to imagine
visually - though at the same time it is very striking.
58
COMMENTS
1.
The incident is described with simple economy. The lines are short, the language is simple. As we
read we can picture the incident clearly. The dusty, dry, hot landscape; the small town on the
tourist route, the beggar woman who won't take no for an answer.
2.
The turning point in the poem is at stanza 6 when the old woman asks the poet what else she
could do, other than beg, in a landscape (and a society) so inhospitable. The poet is made to
think again. The emaciated old woman and the landscape merge; he feels the violence of the
situation ("crack", "sky falls", "plate-glass clatter"). He feels small and insignificant ("reduced")
as he gives her the small change from his pocket.
3.
The poet's attitude changes throughout the poem. When the old woman first approaches him
he tries to shake her off. She offers to take him to see a local shrine for a small coin. He makes
the excuse that he has already seen it. He moves along and she follows. He is irritated. He
comments that you can't get rid of old women. He turns to speak firmly to her. She speaks to
him and pleads that she has no alternative. She has to beg to stay alive. He looks at her in a new
light. He sees the long years of suffering and deprivation in her face. He sees how she stands
alone. He is humbled and gives her his small change.
4.
The language at the beginning of the poem is direct, sparse, and matter-of-fact. Its intention is
largely narrative. It sets the scene and tells the story. It is unemotional.
After stanza six the language changes. The poetic style becomes more intense. Suggestive
images convey emotions. The old woman's eyes are deep and dark - they are compared to bullet
holes - an image which carries overtones of violence. The dry and wrinkled skin of her face is
swiftly suggested. Her face merges with the landscape. The hills and temples seem to crack and
the sky seems to fall in. The scene before him may break like a plate-glass window but the old
woman stands before him, a "shatter-proof crone".
SECTION A
1.
Explain each of the following:
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
tags along (line 3)
They stick to you like a burr (line 12)
with an air of finality (line 14)
the shatter-proof crone (line 29)
2. The poem finishes with a metaphor. What has happened to make the tourist feel like small change
in the hand of the beggar to whom he has given - or not given - a few coins?
3. What is the effect of the repetition in the following sentences?
“And the hills crack. / And the temples crack. / And the sky falls”
59
SECTION B
1.
Write about the way the poet's attitude changes during the poem.
2.
The language style in the poem changes as the poet's feelings change. Write about the way the
changes in the language style express the changes in the poet's emotions.
3.
How does the sound of the poetry in lines 23 to 29 suggest the poet's feelings at this point in the
poem?
SECTION C
1. The poet is writing here in the persona of a tourist.
(a)
Imagine that he sends a postcard to a friend from the place he has just visited. Write
the short message on the back of the card in which he refers briefly to his meeting with
the old woman.
(b)
The tourist writes a long letter to a friend from the comfort of his hotel room. Write the
paragraphs in his letter which refer to his meeting with the old woman.
2. Beggars are an increasingly common sight in the streets and cities of Australia. Write as fully as you
can, in any form you wish to use, about this topic.
3. The poem presents a clear sense of 'before' and 'after'. Show how the poet's attitude to the old
woman changes in the course of the poem. You should include comment on the structure of the
poem and his choice of words.
60
Part 4:
Essay Questions and
Considerations
61
Poems from Other Cultures and Traditions
Essay Responses
1. Choose two poems which deal in some way with the experience of moving between
different cultures, and explain in each case how this is reflected in the imagery of the poems.
2. Choose two poems which communicate a sense of injustice, and show how the poet has
succeeded in doing this.
3. Choose two poems which make connections between the past and the present, and show
what this means to the writer.
4. Show how any two of these poets explore the idea of cultural identity in the poems you have
studied.
5. Compare two poems from different cultures which seem to you to have something in
common, and explain why you think this is so.
6. Write about two poems in which the form and style of the writing seem to you particularly
effective.
7. Explain how knowledge of the cultural context has helped you to interpret and respond to
any two of the poems in this selection.
8. Choose two poems in which the titles seem to you to pin-point what the poems are about,
and explain in each case how this idea is developed in the course of the poem.
9. Choose two poems in which the final line seems to you particularly important. Show in each
case how the poem builds towards this conclusion.
10. Choose two poems which deal with an experience of inner conflict or confusion, and show
how this is developed through the language and imagery of the poems.
11. Choose two poems in which imagery is important and write about how the poets use images
to convey their ideas.
12. Choose two poems and comment on how the poets use sound (alliteration, assonance,
onomatopoeia) to describe people and places effectively.
13. Choose two poems which present a view of culture which you find especially interesting. You
should consider:
• the poets' ideas
• the way the poems are set out
• the ways the poets use language.
62
Poems from Other Cultures and Traditions
Essay Planning and Preparation
When planning and preparing your response, please give careful consideration to the following
prompts. They are, in effect, a translation of Australian Curriculum jargon.
Furthermore, remember: the object of this exercise is not to ‘retell’ or ‘narrativise’ the poems, as if
doing so proves that you have understood them. You are expected to construct and convey a
carefully considered and well informed opinion – you must ‘make a case’ that is built upon the
reasoned discussion and analysis of textual evidence, and lay out a clear and cogent ‘logic trail’
that shows your reader how and why your insights are valid.
•
Can you focus clearly on the wording of the chosen question and select two poems to write
about which are relevant to it?
•
Can you refer closely to the poems you have chosen, quoting words or phrases, or
mentioning line numbers?
•
Can you make connections between the two poems you have chosen, including any direct
points of comparison or contrast?
•
Can you show how the meaning develops through the course of the poems? Can you explain
what each poet is thinking and feeling at the end of the poem, and how this relates to what
has gone before?
•
Can you show insight into the writer's attitude in each poem, and into the experiences with
which the poems deal? Can you explain your personal response to the poems?
•
Can you refer closely to details in the two poems in order to explain what you think each
poem is about? Can you explain things which are left implicit in the poem? Do you
understand something about the cultural contexts from which the poems come?
•
Can you explain why certain words and images have been chosen by the poets, and how
sound and connotation contribute to the impact and resonance of a poem?
•
Can you draw attention to how the poems are shaped and patterned on the page, and how
this contributes to their meaning? Can you make a personal judgement on how effectively
the poems have been crafted?
•
Can you comment on the ways language and style varies between the poems, showing some
awareness of the distinctive voice of each writer and how this has been created?
63
Part 5:
Narrative and Activities
64
Kiss Miss Carol by Farrukh Dhondy
Jolil knew that his Dad would not be at home when he got back from school. Mr Miah would come
home at seven o'clock, sometimes eight, after he finished work at the tailoring factory. When he got
back he'd say his sunset prayers, even though in England the sun had gone to rest hours earlier, and
then he'd seat Jolil on the stool next to him and ask him what had happened at school. He'd look
through Jolil's school satchel and flip the pages of the books one by one. Jolil knew his father didn't
read English very well, but day after day, especially since he'd gone to the new school, the pretence
was kept up. Today Jolil carried Miss Ingram's letter in his bag. He didn't want to give it to his Dad.
On the envelope, Miss Ingram had written 'Mr and Mrs Miah'. When his Dad saw the letter he
would think it was a complaint. He'd hold the letter up to the light and then ask Jolil to read it.
'Podho, podho,' he'd say in Bengali, 'Read loudly your own sins.' The letter wasn't a complaint. It was
an invitation from the school to the Christmas Concert. 'You can read them, but then put them away
and make sure your parents leave the evening free,' Miss Ingram said.
When Jolil went to her desk as his name was called, she smiled and said: 'Won't his mother be proud
of her Jolil when she sees him speaking such good English? Have you asked her to patch a shirt for
you yet?'
'Yes Miss, I'll bring it tomorrow,' Jolil said. It wasn't the truth. He hadn't mentioned the shirt at
home. In fact he hadn't mentioned the Christmas play at all since the day he first told his Dad about
it.
Miss Ingram had read the play in the English lesson and then they'd read different parts in class. It
was called A Christmas Carol. Then when they'd finished reading it, they had to read the parts one
by one in front of Miss Ingram and the Headmaster. Miss Ingram had said that only those girls and
boys who read loudly and clearly would be given the parts to act on stage. Jolil was one of the best
readers in the class and the others had only laughed at him once when he said 'kiss-miss' and the
Headmaster stopped him and said, 'No, don't kiss miss now, wait for Kris-t-mas'.
At the end of it, Miss Ingram read out the list. 'And we've decided that Jolil must be Tiny Tim,' she
beamed. It was only when he was going home that day that Jolil wondered what his Dad would say.
He wouldn't like it. More waste of time, he'd say.
'What part are you supposed to be playing?' his Dad asked. 'Plays all the time, no good.'
'It's Tiny Tim,' Jolil said.
'What's that?'
'It's a boy, a lame boy.'
'Any other Bengali children in this play?'
'The whole class. There's Mumtaz and Mahashobha.'
65
'I suppose they are lame too?'
'No Dad, it's a very good story, about Christmas; about being kind to the poor.'
'What are you acting? Kind or poor?'
'Poor,' Jolil replied. It wasn't going well, this questioning.
'I send you to school clean and they turn you into a beggar boy!' his Dad said.
Then he took off his white cap and scratched his almost bald head. 'You tell them Allah gave you
both legs to use. Playing beggars, very bad.'
That was a month ago and so Jolil didn't tell his Dad about the rehearsals and how much he enjoyed
himself hopping about on the crutch and being helped to his stool by Paul and Rebecca who were
acting as his brother and sister Cratchits. There was another reason Jolil didn't want to show his Dad
the invitation. Even if by some miracle he changed his mind and said yes, he could be in the play and
go to school in the evening when the parents would come, Jolil didn't want his Dad to come to his
school. The last time he came, he turned up in his prayer-cap, wearing his loose white trousers and
long black coat. The other boys and girls didn't have Dads like that. All their Dads wore flash jackets
and even Mumtaz's Dad was young and wore a suit, and when he saw Jolil said, 'Hullo sonny'.
Jolil wasn't really ashamed of his Dad, but school was a different world and he felt shy going around
with him and sitting at the teachers' tables and listening to his Dad's broken English.
Now he had this invitation. He walked out of the school gate and decided to walk all the way home
and not towards the bus stop. He walked past the corrugated iron fences around the old estates
which were being gutted and rebuilt or demolished completely. With their windows and frames
ripped out, they looked like huge skulls which had been picked clean, Jolil thought.
Jolil reached Liverpool Street. He crossed carefully. There was lots of traffic, and thousands of white
people hurrying towards the train station. Nothing to fear from them Jolil thought, they were the
kind of white people who didn't bother
70
you, his Dad had told him. His brother Khalil had said that when white people have
something to do then they don't notice you. It was true. Once across Liverpool Street, Jolil knew he
had to watch out. Beyond that boundary there was the vegetable market and then the alleys and
streets with the big old estates. Very few Bengalis lived in those estates. Once when he was walking
home from school, some young white men on a balcony had watched him and shouted bad things at
him and one of them threw a bucket of soapy water from the first floor all over him. Jolil got home
soaking and told his mother it had been raining the other side of Brick Lane. She wouldn't know. She
hardly went out, ever.
After Brick Lane it was safe. Nearly everybody on Brick Lane and the streets beyond it was Bengali or
Punjabi or Indian or something. If anyone stopped him in the street it would probably be someone
who recognised him as his father's son and was from his father's village back in Bangladesh.
Walking down Hanbury Street, only two hundred yards from where he lived, Jolil made up his mind.
The invitation would have to go. He'd tear it up. Then on the day of the concert, he'd tell his Dad
66
that he was going to the pictures with his elder brother Khalil who was allowed out of the house at
any time, now that he was sixteen.
If he saved up all the bus fares his mother gave him and walked to and from school every day and
gave up eating crisps, then he could save enough to bribe Khalil with it by buying him a ticket to the
Naz Cinema on the day and ask him to wait for him after the movie and go home with him.
He pulled the envelope out of his bag and looked at it hard, then he tore it down the middle. Then
again and again until the wad of paper was too thick to tear. He threw the pieces near a pile of
garbage and the lines of the play came into his head 'God bless us, one and all.'
Now he'd done it. He looked around. He suddenly felt lighter, like a donkey who'd thrown off its
rider. It would be all right, he told himself, Khalil would agree. Then he could buy himself a secondhand shirt from Dog Market and he could sew up one sleeve and put patches on the shirt when his
Dad was out of the house. There were two sewing machines at home. His Dad was a tailor, his Mum
was a tailor, his brother, even though he was in the Sixth Form, was a bit of a machinist and Jolil
could certainly use the machines. He knew about the machines like white boys and girls knew about
knives and forks. Jolil reached for his front door key. He thought he heard Khalil's voice. Then he
heard his Dad's voice. He went into the front room. Khalil was standing in front of the mirror and
combing his hair, pretending not to look at his Dad but observing his face in the mirror.
'You'll do exactly as I say,' their Dad said. Khalil scowled and didn't reply.
'No factory today?' Jolil asked.
'Don't interrupt,' his Dad said, 'go into the kitchen.'
Jolil did as he was told. His mother was sitting on a stool and sorting out the grit and chaff from a
tray of lentils. She was also listening to the argument between father and son in the front room. She
didn't say a word to Jolil. Khalil was making some reply. He didn't want to go, he said. Jolil gathered
the story. His father was telling Khalil that he had to go with his uncle back to Bangladesh for four
months. He had to leave in two days' time. His ticket had been bought. There was family business to
settle in their village and he was the eldest son and had to go back and see it done.
It was obvious that Khalil didn't want to go to Bangladesh, even for a few months. Both the brothers,
Jolil and Khalil, knew all about their village there. Khalil had been born there, but Jolil had been born
in Britain and had grown up in the East End. Khalil always talked about Bangladesh as his real
country, but now that he had to go, he didn't want to. But if the family said you had to go, then you
had to go. It would be bad with Khalil, Jolil thought. Then it struck him that his plan, the big lie,
getting out of the house on the evening of the Christmas show, would now be impossible. He
thought about it all through school the next day. Should he tell Miss Ingram? Darren could be given
the part. He'd learn the lines and do it. Miss Ingram would ask him to change places with Darren
who was only helping move the tables and things onto the stage and hated it. Jolil couldn't even do
that. He had to say he wouldn't be there.
Besides, if he told Miss Ingram, she might want to come home and speak to his Dad. That was what
she was like. Jolil looked at Miss Ingram. She had curly blonde hair, all untidy and her jeans were
patched. He knew his father wouldn't like her. He wouldn't listen to her. Maybe if she wore a neat
67
skirt and a clean shirt and combed her hair, then his Dad would listen to her, but Jolil couldn't ask
her to do that. The day Khalil was going to the airport, Miss Ingram told the class that they were
going to try some costumes on. 'Up with your leg, Jolil,' she said. 'Let's see if we can make a real
hobbler out of you. We 're going to tie your left leg behind your back and then put you into these
beautiful big bloomers.'
Most of them knew their lines by now and, with the costumes, the play suddenly felt very real. That
evening his Dad didn't ask to see his school books. Instead he sat Jolil down and told him that now
Khalil had gone, he would have to work much harder and his mother would have to work too,
because he had spent a great deal of money on Khalil's trip and they had to make it up.
'You can get back straight from school and help your mother. I've found a guv'nor who will give us
pocket linings to sew and I'll bring the bundles home tomorrow. You want to do it, don't you?'
Jolil said yes, he did. His father patted him on the shoulder. He looked worried and his eyes seemed
to look beyond the wall he was staring at. 'You're a good boy,' he said.
There was only one day left before the play now. Jolil couldn't tell Miss Ingram that he wouldn't be
there. Maybe if he spoke really loudly and clearly when the school were watching the play in the
afternoon, then she would forgive him when he didn't turn up in the evening. Jolil remembered the
time when a small Bengali boy had been kidnapped in the East End. Maybe he could tell the
Headmaster the day after the play that he had been kidnapped by some men in masks and they had
taken him away. Or he could say he suddenly fainted in the street on the way to school. Jolil woke up
on the morning of the play to the sound of the clicking machine. His Dad had been out early that day
and returned with the stuff that had to be stitched. In the front room his mother was already at
work. Jolil had two hours before school. He made himself some tea, changed into his school clothes
and sat down at the other machine. He watched the clock. He watched the needle go in and out of
the patches of grey cloth, like the beak of a bird pecking down a line of crumbs. He turned the linings
on the steel plate with a flourish, like a driver turning the wheel round a fast corner. His Dad left for
work.
‘I have to go to school, Mum,' Jolil said.
'Do as you please. I'm tied to this machine. What's so important about your school anyway? You can
stay home one day. There are two thousand to do.'
'I've already done two hundred.'
'They have to be finished by this evening. Then your father says we'll get another load of coat linings
to do. You'll have to go with him this evening and get the bundles.'
Jolil was late for school. By the time he got there, the Maths lesson had already started.
After lunch the actors were called by the loudspeaker system they had in each class to the rooms at
the back of the hall. In the hall the seniors were putting out the chairs. The third years had a reggae
band on stage and there were wires, baskets of costumes from the fifth year play, overturned chairs
and running teachers all over the place. Miss Ingram was helping people on with their costumes and
then sending them to a corner of the room where two art teachers sat them down on a stool in front
68
of a bright light and put pink stuff on their faces. It wasn't like school. Even the lights in the room
were brighter and stood on stands. It was snowing outside.
Jolil could hear the rest of the school filing in and the teachers seeing that they sat down. The first
item was the reggae band. The murmur, like the roar of a railway station, died down in a few
seconds after the first note rang out in the hall. It was good. The school loved it. Jolil could hear the
claps and his heart began to beat faster. Miss Ingram kept telling those who were whispering to each
other to shut up. She had brought Jolil a battered hat with a turned up brim, like Paddington Bear
wore, and he had to put it on. Jolil thought he'd be scared when he saw all the faces of the school
looking up at him, but when he actually got on stage and the words came tumbling out of him, and
he turned his eyes to look into the hall, all he could see was darkness and outlines.
The school clapped wildly when the play was done and the curtains came down and the lights went
up. 'Good show, all of you,' the Headmaster said as they were changing back into their own clothes.
'If you do as well this evening, we'll give the whole school a holiday some time next term.'
'What's the matter, Jolil?' asked Miss Ingram. 'You were perfect. Are you feeling all right?'
'Yes Miss,' Jolil replied and immediately realised that he should have said 'No Miss' and then they
might believe him if he said he was ill and couldn't come that evening. ‘I’m the traitor, Miss. No
holiday for the school. We won't do as well this evening. You see, my Dad, he doesn't like plays, he
doesn't listen to anybody. He won't let me come. The linings, Miss, the coat linings, we've got to do
the coat linings. I'm sorry, I'm very, very sorry.' The words were tumbling around Jolil's mind. 'My
Dad is Scrooge,' he wanted to say. 'If you were an angel, a good spirit, he'd listen to you. No! He
wouldn't listen to anybody.'
'Come back at six. The play will start at seven-thirty,' Miss Ingram said.
It was on the way home, after he crossed Brick Lane, that Jolil began to feel that maybe his Dad was
right. All these men and boys in Brick Lane, moving here and there, some with hangers and coats in
their hands, they were all working. His Dad said Britain was where he'd come to sell his sweat, not to
play silly tricks. Jolil felt he was one of them. He was not like the white children. His family wasn't like
theirs. They didn't have to sit at a machine and do linings at home. They read comics and played with
the other boys and girls on their estates. When he got home his mother was still at the sewing
machine.
'Count those for me, wrap them up in bundles,' she said, throwing a stitched pocket to the floor on
top of a heap. Jolil bundled the cloth up and then sat at the other machine and started it humming.
By the time his Dad returned it was six-thirty. The linings were all done and his Mum was cleaning up
the front room. 'We've got to take time on them. Learn about time. Learn to keep to the agreements
you make,' his Dad said. Then he asked him to fetch his canvas bag. They were setting out.
At seven-thirty Miss Ingram would realise that he wasn't coming. They would all be there in the
changing room, their faces painted and ready. Jolil tried to put it out of his mind as he gripped the
bags and belted his coat about him. The roads were thick with snow and they picked their way
carefully through the slush, not talking to each other and looking down. They stopped outside an old
building and Jolil's Dad rang the bell.
69
'Ah, about time Miah,' the white man said as he asked them to follow him up the stairs. 'I've got
contracts and deadlines too, you know.'
'You said Thursday, we bring Thursday,' Mr Miah said.
'Yeah, right,' the man said, spreading the linings from the bag onto the table. There were coats being
stitched lying on the machines and on the floor of the dingy room.
'Now you want the silk set. I'll get it by next Monday, won't I?' the guv'nor asked. 'You say it date, we
bring it date,' Mr Miah said.
'That's a good lad,' the man said and took Jolil's Dad to the back room and came back with piles and
piles of green cloth. They stuffed the cloth into the bags and descended the stairs. They walked
down the deserted street and turned right towards the railway bridge which would bring them out
of the dead land. Mr Miah carried three bags, and Jolil two.
As they walked, a white van drove past them and then stopped a few yards ahead. As they came up
to pass it, a man leaned out of the passenger window and shouted.
'Oi, Ayatollah, what've you got there? Rat curry?'
'Come this way,' his Dad said. 'These are rubbish people making trouble. Don't say nothing to him.'
He spoke in English because he wanted the men to understand. The door of the van opened and the
man stepped out. Another man jumped out after him. Jolil didn't have time to notice what they
looked like. His father jerked him by the arm and turned him around.
'Back to the guv'nor factory,' he said. They were walking fast now. Jolil turned his head and saw the
two men jump back in the van which was starting up its engine.
'Are they coming?' his Dad asked. The van turned, skidded in the snow, went past them very fast and
braked suddenly at the entrance to the alley towards which they were headed.
'We were talking to you, Ayatollah. You're obviously in a hurry.'
'No talking,' his Dad said. He and Jolil were turning round to go back the other way again.
'Chewing a brick then?' the second man said. There must be three of them, Jolil thought, one driving
and these two ruffians. Again the van started up after them, went past them and blocked the road.
The three men jumped out. Again Jolil and his Dad turned round. They were running now and for a
hundred yards the men chased them.
They reached a street Jolil knew. 'This way,' Jolil said. They turned two corners. There were no
footsteps behind them now.
'We've lost them,' his Dad said and just then the headlights of the van turned the corner.
'Come on,' Jolil shouted in Bengali. He looked at his Dad who was panting heavily now. 'My school is
just here, there'll be people there,' Jolil said. His feet hardly touched the snow. The van caught up
with them and swerved to hit them, missed and then came to a dead stop and started again. His Dad
was two feet behind him, another car passed them and drove into the school gate which was a few
70
yards ahead now. By its headlights, Jolil saw a crowd of people gathered at the gate. The white van
paused outside the gate, and then Jolil saw it slowly move on. Jolil was in the thick of the crowd,
holding his chest, pulling at his breath. There were teachers and some pupils and the caretaker and
Miss Ingram.
'Thank goodness you've come,' she said. 'Hello, Mr Miah. You brought him just in time. Ian will show
you where to sit.' She grabbed Jolil and propelled him towards the changing room. 'What happened
to you? I thought you'd been kidnapped or something. We've got five minutes to get you changed.
They've put the fifth year play on first because of you. Never mind now, just catch your breath.'
'Jolil's here,' the word spread.
Jolil rushed onto the stage, limping and his hat fell off. He heard the polite subdued giggles of the
audience. Then he gathered himself. He was going to do it good. After that the play went beautifully.
'God bless us, one and all,' Jolil heard himself say, casting his crutch on the stage as he knelt down as
Miss Ingram had taught him to do.
All he could see was the outline of the footlights as the applause deafened him. Somewhere beyond
those lights was his Dad, still gathering his breath. Or maybe he had stepped out on the streets
again, looking for the bags they'd dropped.
71
Kiss Miss Carol by Farrukh Dhondy
Farrukh Dhondy was born in India in 1944. He taught English in comprehensive (government) schools
in London before becoming a full-time writer in 1982.
A Christmas Carol is a famous novel by Charles Dickens. Scrooge, a wealthy but mean businessman,
dislikes Christmas, but after seeing frightening visions of Christmas Past, Present and Future on
Christmas Eve, including a vision of what his own death will be like if he does not mend his ways, he
wakes on Christmas morning a changed man. He sends a turkey to his clerk Bob Cratchit and his
family, which includes the crippled Tiny Tim.
Read and revise
1. Neither the white community nor the Bengali community is presented in a straightforward way in
this story. The most obvious hostility comes from the people in the van at the end.
•
•
•
How exactly do they insult the Bengalis?
Underline what you think is the worst thing they say.
What is the most threatening thing they do?
2.
Look at the description of 'the white people hurrying towards the train station' early in the
story. How do they feet about the Bengalis? Are they kind and understanding? Mark the words and
phrases that sum up their attitude.
3.
For Jolil, the most important white person is his teacher, Miss Ingram. Skim through the
story to find out how the author presents Miss Ingram. Look for what she says to JoliI, and to others,
and for words that describe how she looks and behaves. 'She smiled and said ...' is one example, but
there are a lot more.
4.
Is the school presented favourably or unfavourably by the author? Apart from Miss Ingram,
think about:
•
•
•
•
the headmaster
Jolil's classmates
what the school represents for Jolil and his father at the end.
how the play is received.
5.
Jolil's father is the most important Bengali character in the story, apart from Jolil himself.
What is his attitude to white people? Think about:
•
•
what Jolil thinks his father's attitude to Miss Ingram will be - and why he thinks this
the way he refers to the men in the van.
72
6.
What details does the author use to show that Jolil's father is loyal to Bengali culture? Find
and underline:
•
•
•
•
a detail from paragraph one which suggests this
the way he dresses
his attitude to the play
his attitude to his home village.
7.
Jolil's attitude to his father is not as simple as it seems. What is his attitude towards him in
paragraph one, and how does he feel about the possibility of his father coming to see the play?
Underline the phrase in the next paragraph that tells you that his attitude isn't quite what it appears
to be.
8.
Jolil wants to say to Miss Ingram, 'My Dad is Scrooge' .
•
Is this fair? Why might he think his father is like Scrooge?
•
What are his father's real motives? Look at the description of him after he has explained to
Jolil about the extra work.
9.
What is the difference between Jolil's father 's attitude to the village in Bangladesh, and that
of Khalil and Jolil? Where does Jolil seem to belong?
10.
Although Jolil is happy in school, he does notice some differences between himself and the
white children. Find and underline the sentences which tell you this.
11.
Jolil thinks of lots of lies that he could tell during this story, although actually he doesn't lie
very often. Find some of his imaginary lies, and decide why he wants to tell them instead of the
truth.
12.
When Jolil and his father set out with the finished linings, Jolil is told to learn two things.
What are they? In what way are these instructions ironic? (Think about what Jolil should be doing.)
13.
When Miss Ingram sees Jolil, she says, 'I thought you'd been kidnapped or something.' How
does this link up with something Jolil mentions earlier in the story?
14.
The ending is a happy one, apparently - Jolil and his father have escaped from their
attackers, and Jolil performs his part in the play. But is everything really all right in the end?
Final thoughts
Look over the story again. Why do you think it is called Kiss Miss Carol? You might think about:
•
•
•
why the story is set at Christmas
why the author chooses A Christmas Carol as the school play
Miss Ingram.
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Assessment Response
Option 1
Jolil's relationship with his father is difficult. Write about Kiss Miss Carol and its depiction and
treatment of the theme of problems between children and older family members.
You should write about:
•
the reasons for the problems
•
how the child(ren) and adult(s) feel about each other
•
how the author presents the problems.
Option 2
Jolil in Kiss Miss Carol has very difficult decisions to make. Show how the author presents his
character’s feelings and decisions.
You should write about:
•
the nature of the decisions
•
how the two character tries to deal with his situations
•
how the author helps you to understand the character’s decisions by the way in which he
writes.
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