Emigree

• 'There once was a country… I left it as a child'

  It begins like a fairytale would; story-like. It is firmly set in the past (tense), foreshadowing that things may not be as they were before and that the fairytale may have been shattered.
• 'but my memory of it is sunlight-clear'

  There is a happiness that shrouds her memory; it shines and projects itself, despite the haziness a child’s poor memory.
• 'for it seems I never saw it in that November/which, I am told, comes to the mildest city.'

  • Suggests that she was innocently ignorant; she has blocked out the darkness and the gloominess — a metaphor for the unhappy political events — that are often associated with colder months.
  • Note she says ‘I am told’, suggesting that she was too small to know much about her home country other than what people tell her.
• 'The worst news I receive of it cannot break/my original view,'

  The speaker is unapologetically bias about her hometown and she seems determined for her memories to remain untarnished and unspoilt. Is she however, in denial?
• 'the bright, filled paperweight.'

  Metaphor: she is unrelenting and unwilling for her memory to change. They are fixed and solid; stubborn?
• 'It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants,

  but I am branded by an impression of sunlight.'

  Modal Verbs: demonstrate that Irrespective of possibilities, her memory is resolute.

  Adjective: The way in which she regards her home is permanent and marked on her like a tattoo that she is unable, but also unwilling, to erase.
• 'close like waves.'

  Simile: the ‘frontiers’ are trying to break the relationship by overpowering/pummeling them with ‘waves’, however the speaker won’t let this happen.
• 'That child’s vocabulary I carried here/ like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.'

  • The words and opinions she was forbidden to speak about are still inside her, like the filling of a doll.
  • It suggests also that the oppressive regime she fled dehumanised the population, so she lost her essential identity.
  • What she was left with was puppet-like; a doll.
• 'Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it.'

  Despite being in a different place, she is determined to keep her mother tongue.
• 'It may by now be a lie, banned by the state / but I can’t get it off my tongue.'

   Speaking her mother tongue is almost involuntary to her; she doesn’t mean to be rebellious but she can’t forget.
• 'It tastes of sunlight.'

  Simple Sentence & Sensory Language: Contrasts the lies and bans and gives a reason as to why she can’t let I go.
• 'I have no passport, there’s no way back at all'

  The first line of the stanza seems hopeless, but the next line soon changes the mood back.
• 'but my city comes to me in its own white plane.'

  Personification: In much the same way that the speaker is unwilling to let go of the city, the city itself if drawn to the speaker. No matter the circumstances, they find ways back to each other.
• 'It lies down in front of me, docile as paper;'

  Personification + Simile: The city is now given the traits of a loyal subject, submitting to the holding on of happy memories
• 'I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.'

  The city is now like the speaker’s doll or even like it’s ; the relationship is deep and meaningful
• 'My city takes me dancing through the city/ of walls.'

  Personification: The city changes into a lover, courting the speaker. Their relationship takes on a new intimate dimension.
• They accuse me of absence, they circle me./ They accuse me of being dark in their free city.

  • The idyllic picture is suddenly shattered and the tone completely changes. There is an enemy in the midst.
  • Repetition: overwhelming in speech, making it seem as if “they” are surrounding and cornering the speaker. There is also an “us” vs “them” culture being created; a divide and barrier.
• 'My city hides behind me.'

  Personification: The city is now a scared child seeking protection (relationship).
• 'They mutter death,/and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.'

  The speaker has perhaps been martyred for her country, and her shadowing falling, rather than signaling defeat and failure, proves that one can continue to fight the cause for their country and their death (not in vain) serves as evidence of what once was alive: hope and the past glory of the country she was fighting for.