The Emigree

• 'I comb its hair and love its shining eyes'


  Personification of the city

  Implies that she acts like a mother to the city through her unconditional love and protective tendencies
• 'the white streets' 


  Light and colour imagery

  White is symbolic of innocence and purity

  Nothing taints a city like the spilled blood of innocents
• 'the bright filled paperweight' 


  Metaphor

  Symbolic of her country / her impression of her country as it is beautiful yet fragile and easily breakable
• 'I have no passport, there's no way back at all' 


  Alludes to the conflict by man-made borders

  Emphasises the forceful nature of their leaving

  Mysterious language
• 'My city'


  Possessive pronoun

  Shows the protective maternal instinct she has
• 'It may be sick with tyrants'


  Personification

  Implications of hope and space for healing

  Hope out of sheer desperation?
• Title hints at the narrator being a women due to the feminine 'e' on the end of the word 'emigree'
• 'I am branded by an impression of sunlight'


  Shows how her love for her country will always overrule any feelings of pain caused by it

  'branded' implies that the memories she has are permanent and will not fade, could be reflective of a punishment as the memories refuse to be tainted?
• 'sunlight'


  Occurs as an extended metaphor in the poem which could reflect the sheer amount of hope that the narrator has for her country to not be 'sick' anymore

  Every stanza ends in this word which can resemble the narrators thought process as she is always hopeful for her country
• • The phrase "it tastes of sunlight" uses synaesthesia to depict how strong her memories are, they encompass all of her senses
• Poem structure..

  • 3 stanzas, first two have 8 lines, third has 9 lines
  • Maintains a somewhat regular structure which may be the speaker's attempt to impose a sense of order over her city
  • Written in free verse