The emigree

• The poem reflects the torn identity of being displaced from your home. The speaker reflects with joy and nostalgia about her home city from which she is in exile, but also introduces negative imagery which suggests that her life in her home city is oppressive and not free.
• The speaker describes having left her country behind when she was a child, but never losing her child-like image of it. Whatever bad news she hears about it, she remembers the sunlight and its beauty.
• As an adult she is becoming aware that this is a false image, but she cannot forget or dismiss this view. She cannot return to her city but she is preoccupied by images and fantasies of it.
• The speaker nor their homeland is ever specifically named. This could suggest that the speaker represents other who are forced to leave their homelands due to political reason of war.
• The poem is written as a soliloquy / monologue, with the speaker thinking to herself. Use of caesura in line one indicates a flashback / start of a memory.
• The structure of the poem is measured and controlled : two 8 line stanzas, followed by a final 9 line stanza - the extra line perhaps representing some hope for change.It also reflects the calmness of the narrator who recounts very traumatic events and feelings in a serene and stoical way. It offers a sense of child-like nostalgia in missing home.
• “There once was a country..” - begins like a fairytale - a memory from a long time ago. The speaker tells us “I left it as a child” - the poem has a slightly child-like tone to it - perhaps because her memories are associated with childhood.
• “Sunlight-clear” - The extended metaphor / motif of sunlight runs all the way thought the poem to indicate that her memories of the city are positive, vivid and bright.
• The last word of each stanza is “sunlight” which reflects her strongly positive feelings towards her native city or / and would also suggest that change is on the way - perhaps she will be able to return to the “city of walls”
• “time rolls is its tanks” This is a metaphor and it seems to suggest that her time away is increasing the barriers between the poet and her home city, making it harder for her to return as time goes on. The reference to tanks suggests an Eastern European location during the cold war when Russia would respond by sending tanks to any political protest
• Native language: She recalls her “child’s” vocabulary “that she carried../like a hollow doll” - a simile which reinforces the connection with Russia. She is determined to keep the language - “I can’t get it off my tongue” - this is a part of her identity: it “tastes of sunlight” - positive, happy, nostalgic feelings for her
• “My city takes me dancing through the city of walls”. The idea of “dancing” is joyous and life enhancing. However, “city of walls” is more ominous. Walls are built to keep people out or to keep things hidden / secret. It seems to represent dark forces of repression, lack of freedom
• The speaker uses vivid description and colour to represent her memory of the city in a positive way. In stanza one her memory is described as “sunlight clear” and in stanza two the city is described as “white” which could suggest purity or even heavenly.
• The city is described as “the bright, filled paperweight”. It suggests that her memories are clear, either detailed or numerous but also that her view is fixed. Moreover it may add ideas of value and worth - paperweights are often vivid, colourful, bright treasured or valuable objects.
• “they circle me” - The speaker feels threatened and oppressed by them. Who are they? People from her home country or the people from where the speaker now lives?
• Feelings and attitudes

  Nostalgia: the speaker’s positive views and memories of the city are unchanging and unwavering. Her use of language shows a sense of yearning for the city, her home country, and the past
• THEMES

  Identity

  (Presentation of) place

  Freedom and restriction

  Displacement and loss: the speaker has been displaced from her own country and her reaction to this is to cling harder to the things she has lost - her language and her identity. The phrase “I have no passport” suggests she has not adopted a new nationality and she can’t return to her birth country
• COMPARE

  ’Checking out me history’ - identity

  ’London’ - place

  ’Prelude’ - place or / and memory

  ’Storm on the island‘ - place and / or conflict
• KEY QUOTES

  ”mildest city”

  ”sunlight clear”

  ”the bright, filled paperweight”

  ”I carried her like a hollow doll”

  ”city of walls”

  ”they circle me”
• BIG IDEA

  Effects of conflict

  Memory

  Identity

  Negative emotions