Emigree

• structure

  • lots of juxtaposition - contrasts between positive and negative - power of place/memories - speaker has been forced to leave her homeland but still thinks of it fondly - shows inner conflict of memories/reality of those who have power in war torn countries
• structure

  • written in free verse - no rhyme or regular rhythm - shows freedom for people who have to live in tyrant run countries
  • enjambment - overflow of emotion - these memories make her feel nostalgic, the writer has to write things down so she doesn't forget
  • caesura - pauses shows how writer is thinking about her memories - nostalgia, struggling to remember eg '...' in first line shows it hard to talk about - pauses make reader think about what they are going through (sympathy)
• structure -

  shows the chaos withing the woman's mind - she loves her country but it is ran by tyrants - shows the lack of power (their minds have a lot to say but they have no voice)

  chaos - danger - war torn country - no organisation

  regular stanza length - 1+2 = 8 lines, 3=9 (3rd is longer, she doesn't want to leave) - order in the chaos shows;

  • the writer doesn't show their emotions
  • tyrants control the writer
• 'sunlight'


  recuring image

  connotates of happiness, positivity

  end of stanza's

  shows how she feels about the place - love, passion, over cruelty

  • 'but my memory is sunlight-clear' - 'but' = confusion, 'my' - personal pronoun, sunlight-clear - positivity, life bringing, contrasts 'November' - dark, gloomy, cold - foreboding, anxious
  • 'branded... sunlight' - branded = metaphor, can't change, painful contrasts the warmth and happiness sunlight brings
  • 'it taste of sunlight' - metaphor, -senses positivity
• Carol Rumens

  • born 1944 London
  • Poet Laurette and translator
  • lived in Belfast and Wales
  • travelled loads - Russia, Eastern Europe
  • her poetry - arresting imagery and symbolism
• 'it may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants'


  'it' - country - dissociates

  'war - extreme conflict

  'sick with tyrants' - metaphor

  'sick' - illness, disease
• 'bright filled paper-weight'


  metaphor

  'paper weight' - glass dome that holds down paper - holds memories in her mind

  'bright filled' - memories are bright and positive and fixed - nothing can change her opinion of her home country
• 'they accuse me... they circle me. They accuse me of being dark in their free city'


  'they accuse me ' - repeated - she is too blame

  'circle me' - predatorial

  'dark' - contrasts the positive sunlight imagery from before

  'their free city' - the tyrants feel they are right - contrasts 'the city of walls'

  'they' - repeated in the final stanza a lot, unclear who 'they' is, threatening