THE EMIGREE

• CONTEXT:

  • The poem is contained in the 1993 collection “ Thinking of Skins ” which is centred on political consciousness in Eastern Europe
  • London born but lived in belfast and wales and travelled around the country
• “It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; I comb it’s hair and love it’s shining eyes”

  • she controls her visions - they act like a placid and obedient pet
  • simile highlights that paper can be folded and re-folded by her as she wishes. It's also white which connotes purity and innocence.
  • iambic pentameter creates a gentle and flowing rhythm like a lullaby
  • her idealised visions are recorded on paper, like a fairy tale linking back to the fairy tale opening at the start “There once was a …”
  • Her good memories act as a paperweight to stop the thoughts of her country blowing away like paper.
• “I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight”

  • language is so important and real to the speaker that she can’t not speak it; it is always on her ‘tongue’ (always on her mind)
  • Synesthesia alongside the repetition of sunlight brings a lyrical end to the stanza.
  • caesura shows she’s been silenced in the way the state silences her by banning her language
• "as time rolls it's tanks"

  • Time could be the enemy as it slips away
  • tanks could represent physical conflict OR the destruction of time
  • plosive ‘T’s create a sinister tone showing how her memories are different to reality
  • The war could be a metaphor for growing up, in which the tanks could be the child’s reluctance to grow up and face the real world
• "the frontiers rise between us like waves"

  • “Frontier” shows physical separation to where she is now and where she came from. Describing two mentalities
  • the idealistic girl with glowing childhood memories and the adult whose intelligence tells her that she is romanticising what she barely remembers
  • a barrier between the poet and the surrounding adults who tell her to be more realistic
  • Simile -> people left the city quickly, like waves seeking refuge on a shore
  • OR refer to the red sea parting, In which after the Israelites passed, the waves flowed back and path taken couldn’t be taken again
• “but I am branded by an impression of sunlight"

  • Repetition of sunlight = Glowing pride for her city = dream like picture of the past = shining a light on her city
  • “branded” as an outsider by society ?
  • “branded” → physically disfigured by her experiences OR the only memory she has is positive