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Online Student Booklet
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Any
society is a society in conflict, and any anthology
of a society’s poetry that does not reflect this, is a lie.
Tom
Leonard - Literature, Dialogue, Democracy
Different Cultures | F.L.I.R.T | Poems |
| ‘DIFFERENT CULTURES’
CULTURE
l
TRADITION l
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, even where their earlier religious significance has faded. Traditions also take the form of stories and
legends which are passed on orally through generations.
Traditions are not always fixed: to study a ‘literary tradition’,
for example, is to trace forms and styles which evolve over generations, as one writer
learns from another. 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. In the National Curriculum, 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. The ‘heritage industry’,
which has grown rapidly in recent years, makes money out of people’s interest in the
past (or from reconstructions of the past as people like to imagine it). |
| F.L.I.R.T: SOME QUESTIONS TO ASK
These
questions will help you to investigate a poem independently
FORM
What
does the poem look like on the page?
Do the words form any kind of pattern or make a shape to the eye?
LANGUAGE
Are
there any strange words that you don’t use today?
Is the language modern or old?
Do you recognise all the words?
Assonance, alliteration, emotive vocabulary?
IMAGERY:
Any
similes, metaphors, personification?
If so what it is and why?
RHYME:
Does
it rhyme?
What is the rhyming pattern?
TONE:
What
does the poet think about what he or she is writing about?
Why is he or she writing the poem?
What does the poet want us to think?
When
analysing poetry, whenever you make a statement or describe a feature of the work, ask
yourself what effect it has on the poem. Why
has the poet used a lot of imagery? What
effect does it have on the poem? Is it
intended?
Don’t
forget to stick to the PEAK format for answering questions.
Printable version of
the FLIRT table |
POEMS
As well as the poems you will prepare in class, in your exam you
will also have to answer questions on a poem from a different culture that you haven't
prepared for. In fact, most of the marks will be awarded for your response to the poem you
haven't seen!
Here are some poems from different cultures that are just like the
ones you may get in the exam. The ones with bold links have response
tests attached to them. Try to identify the reasons particular words are highlighted. At
the end of each test you will get your score. Good luck!
Click on the title to go to that particular
poem
Search for my tongue | Unrelated Incidents | Half
Caste | Blessing
Presents
from my aunts in Pakistan | Ogun | Charlotte O'Neil's Song
An Old Woman | Hurricane hits England | Nothing's
Changed
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| Search for my tongue
|
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Sujata Bhatt |
| 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 mari bhasha pachi aavay chay)
(foolnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh)
(modhama kheelay chay)
(fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari 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.
Top of Page
| Poem Menu |
Explanation
mother
tongue: your
native or original language. It can also
mean the language from which another language has developed, as a mother gives birth.
Sujata
Bhatt was born in India in 1956. Her family
moved to the US in the 1960s and she now lives in Germany.
Some of the poems in her first book, Brunizem, are written both in English and
Gujerati, her mother tongue. In particular
the long poem Search
For My Tongue
contains a translation of the Gujerati within the text.
Brunizem
won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize in 1988. A
volume of selected poems was published by Carcanet in 1998. |
| from
Unrelated Incidents
|
 |
Tom Leonard |
| this
is thi
six a clock
news
thi
man
said n
thi reason
a talk wia
BBC accent
iz coz yi
widny wahnt
mi ti talk
aboot thi
trooth wia
voice lik
wanno yoo
scruff. if
a toktaboot
thi trooth
lik wanna yoo
scruff yi
widny thingk
it wuz troo.
jist
wonna yoo
scruff
tokn.
thirza right
way ti spell
ana right way
ti tok it. this
is me tokn yir
right way a
spelling. this
is ma trooth.
yooz doant no
thi trooth
yirsellz cawz
yi canny talk
right. this is
the six a clock
nyooz. Belt up.
Top of Page | Poem Menu |
Explanation
BBC accent: also known as Standard English
or Recieved Pronunciation, this is the 'correct', unaccented English used by news
presenters and others in positions of authority. It is often thought of as conferring
credibility and status because it reveals nothing of the speaker's place of origin or
social background
Tom
Leonard was born in Scotland in 1944 and writes mainly in Glasgow dialect. He has been writing for thirty years, and his
collected works, which mix dialect poems with controversial essays, are published by
Vintage. The sequence Unrelated Incidents is included in Intimate Voices: Selected Works 1965 – 1983. |
|
|
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John Agard |
Excuse
me standing on one leg
I’m half-caste
Explain yuself
wha yu mean when yu say half-caste
yu mean when picasso
mix red an green
is a half-caste canvas
explain yuself
wha yu mean when yu say half-caste
yu mean when light an shadow
mix in de sky
is a half-caste weather
well in dat case england weather nearly always half-caste
in fact some o dem cloud
half-caste till dem overcast
so spiteful dem don’t want de sun to pass
ah rass
explain yuself
wha yu mean when yu say half-caste
yu mean tchaikovsky sit down at dah piano
an mix a black key wid a white key
is a half-caste symphony.
Explain
yuself
wha yu mean
Ah listening to yu wid de keen
half of mih ear
Ah looking at yu wid de keen
half of mih eye
and when I’m introduced to yu
I’m sure you’ll understand
why I offer yu half-a-hand
an when I sleep at night
I close half-a-eyeconsequently when I dream
I dream half-a-dream an when moon begin to glow
I half-caste human being
cast half-a-shadow
but yu must come back tomorrow
wid de whole of yu eye
an de whole of yu earan de whole of yu mind
an I will tell yu
de other half
of my story
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| Poem Menu |
Explanations
Half-caste: a term used
to describe people born of parents of different colour. Once in
common usage, it is now considered insulting
Picasso: Pablo Picasso, a Spanish artist famous for some of the most
influential paintings of the twentieth century
Ah rass: an expression of disgust
Tchaikovsky: Peter Tchaikovsky, a famous nineteenth-century Russian
composer
John
Agard was born in Guyana and moved to Britain in 1977.
He has written poetry for both adults and children and enjoys performing his
work. His earlier poetry can be found in
Mangoes and Bullets (published by Serpent’s Tail).
He has recently published
From the Devil’s Pulpit (Bloodaxe), a
devil’s eye view of the world. He was
the first Poet in Residence
at
the BBC, a post which he held from January-June 1998 |
| Blessing
|
 |
Imtiaz Dharker |
| 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.
Top of Page | Poem Menu |
Explanations
Blessing:
something precious, given rather than earned; a free gift
fortune:
wealth, good luck or fate
municipal:
public, belonging to the town
tongues:
voices
congregation:
a group of people assembled together for a common purpose
Imtiaz
Dharker was born in Pakistan in 1954 and now lives in Bombay, where she works as an artist
and film-maker. Her two books of poetry, Purdah
(1989) and Postcards from God (1994) have
recently been published in one volume by Bloodaxe Books. |
Presents from my aunts in Pakistan |
 |
Moniza Alvi |
Read
this poem as a whole and then click Here
to have a go at spotting some poetry techniques in the poem.
They
sent me a salwar kameez
peacock-blue
and another
glistening like an orange split open,
embossed slippers, gold and black
points curling.
Candy-striped glass bangles
snapped, drew blood.
Like at school, fashions changed
in Pakistan –
the salwar bottoms were broad and stiff,
then narrow.
My aunts chose an apple green sari,
silver bordered
for my teens.
I
tried each satin-silken top –
was alien in the sitting room.
I could never be as lovely
As those clothes –
I longed
for denim and corduroy.
My costume clung to me
and I was aflame,
I couldn’t rise up out of its fire,
half-English,
unlike Aunt Jamila.
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
who sat on my bed, asked to see
my
weekend clothes.
But often I admired the mirror-work,
tried
to glimpse myself
in the miniature
glass circles, recall the story
how
the three of us
sailed to England.
Prickly heat had me screaming on the way,
I ended
up in a cot
in my English grandmother’s dining-room,
found myself
alone,
playing with a tin boat.
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 form 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.
Top of Page
| Poem Menu |
Explanations
salwar
kameez:
salwar = loose trousers traditionally worn in Pakistan and Bangladesh; kameez = the loose
shirt worn over the top of the salwar
embossed:
with a raised pattern
sari:
the traditional dress women of India and some parts of Pakistan
filigree:
delicate metalwork made from twisted gold or silver wire
radiant:
bright
Prickly
heat:
a severe itching of the skin caused by heat
Lahore:
capital of Punjab province and second largest city in Pakistan
fretwork:
decorative carvings
Shalimar
Gardens:
gardens in Lahore, famous for their beauty
Moniza
Alvi was born in Pakistan in 1954 and moved to Britain when she was a child. She worked as
an English teacher in London and edited the Poetry London Newsletter. Her poetry
can be found in The country at my Shoulder (Oxford University press, 1993) and A
Bowl of Warm Air (Oxford University Press, 1996) |
Ogun
|
 |
Edward Kamau Braithwaite |
| My
uncle made chairs, tables, balanced doors on, dug out
coffins, smoothing the white wood out
with
plane and quick sandpaper until
it shone like his short-sighted glasses.
The
knuckles of his hands were sil-
vered knobs of nails hit, hurt and flat-
tened
out with blast of heavy hammer. He was
knock-knee’d, flat-
footed and his clip clop sandals slapped across the concrete
flooring
of his little shop where canefield mulemen and a fleet
of Bedford lorry drivers dropped in to scratch themselves and talk.
There
was no shock of wood, no beam
of light mahogany his saw teeth couldn’t handle.
When
shaping squares for locks, a key hole
care tapped rat tat tat upon the handle
of
his humpbacked chisel. Cold
world of wood caught fire as he whittled: rectangle
window
frames, the intersecting x of fold-
ing chairs, triangle
trellises,
the donkey
box-cart in its squeaking square.
But
he was poor and most days he was hungry.
Imported cabinets with mirrors, formica table
tops, spine-curving chairs made up of tubes, with hollow
steel-like bird bones that sat on rubber ploughs,
thin
beds, stretched not on boards, but blue high-tensioned cables,
were what the world preferred.
And
yet he had a block of wood that would have baffled them.
With knife and gimlet care he worked away at this on Sundays,
explored
its knotted hurts, cutting his way
along its yellow whorls until his hands could feel
how
it had swelled and shivered, breathing air,
its weathered green burning to rings of time,
its
contoured grain still tuned to roots and water.
And as he cut, he heard the creak of forests:
green
lizard faces gulped, grey memories with moth
eyes watched him from their shadows, soft
liquid
tendrils leaked among the flowers
and a black rigid thunder he had never heard within his hammer
came
stomping up the trunks. And as he worked
within his
shattered Sunday shop, the wood took shape: dry shuttered
eyes,
slack anciently everted lips, flat
ruined face, eaten by pox, ravaged by rat
and
woodwork, dry cistern mouth, cracked
gullet crying for the desert, the heavy black
enduring
jaw; lost pain, lost iron;
emerging woodwork image of his hunger. |
| Explanations
Ogun: powerful West African god of iron and thunder. Ogun has been an important god in both the
tropical and desert regions of West Africa since ancient times
plane:
hand tool with a flat surface and protruding blade, used to shave a piece of wood unit it
is level, smooth and the right thickness
canefield
mulemen:
men in charge of the mules used to carry sugar cane from the cane fields
shock:
hard or difficult part of the wood
whittled:
carved, shaved away
trellises:
fence or screen made by the criss-crossing of slats of wood
formica:
synthetic sheet material
gimlet:
hand tool for boring fine holes
whorls:
circular patterns
contoured:
ringed, as if showing hills or mountains on map
tendrils:
slender, leafless plant
stems which cling to other plants for support
everted:
turned outwards
cistern:
water tank
gullet:
throat
Edward
Kamau Brathwaite was born in Barbados in 1930. After
winning a scholarship to study history at Cambridge University he went on to take a PhD in
Jamaican history. He then went to Ghana where
he taught for several years before returning to the Caribbean to lecture at the University
of the West Indies in Jamaica. Ogun
is taken from a trilogy called The Arrivants
(Oxford University Press, 1981). Braithwaite
has published many boks of poetry and is one of the best-known Caribbean poets.
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Charlotte
O'Neil's Song
|
 |
Fiona Farrell |
| You
rang your bell and I answered.
I polished your parquet floor.
I scraped out your grate
And I washed your plate
And I scrubbed till my hands were raw.
You
lay on a silken pillow.
I lay on at attic cot.
That's the way it should be, you said.
That's the poor girl's lot.
You dined at eight
And slept till late.
I emptied your chamber pot.
The rich man earns his castle,you said
The poor deserve the gate.
But
I'll never say 'sir'
Or 'thank you ma'am'
and I'll never curtsey more.
You can bake your bread
and make your bed
and answer your own front door.
I've
cleaned your plate
and I've cleaned your house
and I've cleaned the clothes you wore.
But now you're on your own, my dear.
I won't be there any more.
And I'll eat when I please
and I'll sleep where I please
and
you can open your own front door.
Top of Page | Poem
Menu |
Explanations
‘Isabella
Hercus’:
in the nineteenth century, ships like the Isabella Hercus took passengers from
Britain to a new life in countries like New Zealand or Canada. Here the poet gives
‘voice’ to one such
parquet:
expensive flooring material made from hardwood blocks
grate:
iron base of an open fireplace
cot:
1 child’s bed 2 small, simple bed
chamber
pot:
bedroom pot
Fiona
Farrell was born, and still lives in New Zealand. She writes poems, stories and plays and
has published one volume of poetry, Cutting
Out
(Auckland University Press). Charlotte O’Neil’s Song is from a
sequence of four poems called Passengers. |
An Old Woman
|
 |
Arun Kolatkar |
| Read this poem as a whole and then
click Here to have a go at spotting some
poetry techniques in the poem. 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 plate-glass clatter
Around the shatterproof crone
who stands alone
And
you are reduced
to so much small change
in
her hand
Top of Page | Poem Menu |
Explanations
paise:
an Indian coin. A fifty paise coin in half a rupee. Its English equivalent would be a
little less than a penny.
horseshoe
shrine:
a shrine is a place considered holyt, dedicated to a god or a saint. People often travel
in order to visit a shrine.
burr:
clinging, hooked seed.
arce:
absurd or pointless pretence, a comedy.
crone:
withered old womanbedroom
small
change:
coins of little value
Arun
Kolatkar was born in India in 1932 and worked as a graphic artist in Bombay. He has
published one book of poems in English, Jejuri
(Clearing House, India), which won the Commonwealth Poetry prize in 1976 |
Hurricane
hits England
|
 |
Grace Nichols |
| Read this poem as a whole and then
click Here to have a go at spotting some
poetry techniques in the poem. It
took a hurricane, to bring her closer
To the landscape
Half the night she lay awake,
The howling ship of the wind,
Its gathering rage,
Like some dark ancestral spectre,
Fearful and reassuring:
Talk
to me Huracan
Talk to me Oya
Talk to me Shango
And Hattie,
My sweeping, back-home cousin.
Tell
me why you visit.
An English coast?
What is the meaning
Of old tongues
Reaping havoc
In new places?
The
blinding illumination,
Even as you short-
Circuit us
Into further darkness?
What
is the meaning of trees
Falling heavy as whales
Their crusted roots
Their cratered graves?
O
Why is my heart unchained?
Tropical
Oya of the Weather,
I am aligning myself to you,
I am following the movement of your winds,
I am riding the mystery of your storm.
Ah,
sweet mystery;
Come to break the frozen lake in me,
Shaking the foundations of the very trees within me,
Come to let me know
That the earth is the earth is the earth.
Top of Page | Poem Menu |
Explanations
Hurricane:
Storms of tropical intensity hit the south of England in 1987 and 1989
ancestral:
belonging to our ancestors. Our ancestors are the people from whom we are descended
spectre:
ghost
Huracan:
a form of the word ‘hurricane’
Oya:
one of the gods of the Yoruba people of West Africa. Oya is the goddess of wind, a symbol
of change
Shango:
another god of the Yoruba people, the god of thunder and lightning
Hattie: a famous Caribbean hurricane
aligning:
bringing into line, co-ordinating with
Grace
Nichols was born in Guyana in 1950. After university she worked in the Caribbean and as a
journalist and reporter until she moved to Britain in1977. She now lives and works in
Sussex. Her first book of poetry was published in 1983, the year she won the Commonwealth
Poetry Prize. Grace Nichols also writes novels and compiles poetry anthologies for younger
readers. Her poetry celebrates life with a particular warmth. Hurricane is
taken from her collection of poetry, Sunrise (Virago), published in 1996. |
Nothing's Changed |
 |
Tatamkhulu Afrika |
| Read this poem as a whole and then
click Here to have a go at spotting some
poetry techniques in the poem. Small round hard
stones click
under my heels,
seeding grasses thrust
bearded seeds
into trouser cuffs, cans,
trodden on, crunch
in tall, purple-flowering,
amiable weeds.
District Six.
No board says it is:
but my feet know,
and my hands,
and the skin about my bones,
and the soft labouring of my lungs,
and the hot, white, inwards turning
anger of my eyes.
Brash with glass,
name flaring like a flag,
it squats
in the grass and weeds,
incipient Port Jackson trees:
new, upmarket, haute cuisine,
guard at the gatepost,
whites only inn. |
No sign says it is:
but
we know where we belong.
I press my
nose
to the clear panes, I know,
before I see them, there will be
crushed ice white glass,
linen falls,
the single rose.
Down the road,
working man’s café sells
bunny chows.
Take it with you, eat
it at a plastic table’s top,
wipe your fingers on your jeans,
spit a little on the floor:
it’s in the bone.
I back from the
glass,
boy again,
leaving small, mean O
of small, mean mouth.
Hands burn
for a stone, a bomb,
to shiver down the glass.
Nothing’s
changed. |
| Explanations
trouser
cuffs:
turn up’s
District
Six:
deprived but bustling area of Cape Town in South Africa, home to 55,000 people, mainly
coloured Muslims. In 1966 the white ruling party ordered it to be bulldozed as a slum and
the community was destroyed. Rebuilding was never completed
brash:
offensively
‘showy’
incipient:
developing, just starting
haute
cuisine:
sophisticated, expensive cookery
bunny
chows:
a cheap and filling take-away food eaten mainly by the poor
Tatamkhulu
Afrika was born in Egypt in 1920 and now lives in South Africa. He began writing poetry
when he was in his sixties and has now published four collections of poems about his
experiences in South Africa. Nothing’s
Changed is from his third
book, Magabane.
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