Eastern The Poet example essay topic

Moving between two cultures. The first poem is called Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan. This is about a girl struggling to identify with her mixed racial background. The poet develops her ideas in seven clear stanzas. The poem is written in a free verse, with lines that are different lengths, and there are no rhymes or regular rhythms.

Each of the verses are flowing as though they are her thoughts and not part of a poem at all. The stanzas compare the exotic, colourful silks and jewellery of Pakistan to the plain, boring everyday objects found in England. The stanzas describe her trouble with the clothes that her Aunts have sent her. They have no place in England because they are unpractical and brightly coloured. Glistening like an orange split open Embossed slippers gold and black Points curling The poet is describing the inexperience of the girl at putting on the beautiful pieces of foreign jewellery. Candy-stripped glass bangles Snapped and drew blood The poet mainly focuses on the point that the girl feels of an unfixed culture.

Some of the clothes are to pretty for England and others would make her feel uncomfortable. The poet feels that it is important to learn that you cannot establish your identity through the clothes you choose to wear. My Aunts chose an apple green sari Silver- boarded For my teens The clothes make her ambivalent. When she wears them she feels less than them. The clothes are not suited for the English weather and that makes them less appealing. Her fashion consciousness makes her long for her western clothes.

She feels that in her Eastern clothes she has to act. Her Eastern clothes make her feel claustrophobic. She feels her clothes are too exotic and she is envious of her Aunt because she has a stronger sense of culture than she does. I 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 saw aflame I couldn't rise up out its fire Half English Unlike Aunt Jamil a The camel skin camel causes confusion between her Eastern and Western cultures.

Her Eastern culture is attracted to the beautiful lamp but her Western culture repulses her as she has learnt that it is cruel to kill animals for fashion and household items. Switching it on in my bedroom To consider the cruelty And the transformation From camel to shade Her mother's jewellery was stolen from their car and that felt like the robbery of their nationality. The racism and violence was very much there when the poet wrote this stanza. My mother cherished her jewellery- Indian gold, dangling, filigree.

But it was stolen from our car One side of her memory is Western and the other is Eastern the poet represents that by using a Caucasian girl as the Western side and the girl a Eastern side.