Peoty: Belonging

To my Sister: enjoying nature

‘Put on with speed your woodland dress;

And bring no book for on this day

we’ll give to idleness’

To my Sister: semantic field of happiness in nature

‘There is a blessing in the air,

Which seems a sense of joy to yield’

To my Sister: benefits of nature and God

‘And from the blessed power that rolls About, below, above’

Sunday Dip: happy and carefulness feelings

‘The morning road thronged with merry boys’

Sunday Dip: dismissing danger, joy

‘And dance…And duck about… And laugh to hear the thunder in their ears’

Sunday Dip: idyllic image, ends poem on happiness

‘And play about the water half the day’

Mild the Mist Upon the Hill: calm and optimism

‘Mild the Mist Upon the Hill’

Mild the Mist Upon the Hill: dismisses any sadness of the day

‘the day has wept its fill, spent its store of silent sorrow’

Mild the Mist Upon the Hill: positive memories less negative

‘blue mists, sweet mists of summer pall’

Mild the Mist Upon the Hill: links nature and nostalgia

‘The damp stands in the long green grass’

Captain Cook: life has changed

‘We both of us are altered, and now we talk no more’

Captain Cook: end of friendship/ relationship

‘We leave in leaving childhood, life’s fairyland behind’

Captain Cook: childhood was the only happiness

‘The life that cometh after, dwells in a darker shade.’

Clear and Gentle Stream: nostalgia and calmness

‘Clear and gentle stream’

Clear and Gentle Stream: sinister tone, comfort of nature lost

‘creeping up the glade, With her lengthening shade,’

Clear and Gentle Stream: tone of sadness

‘Be as I content With my old lament And my idle dream’

I Remember I Remember: contrasts past and present

‘Where the sun came peeping at morn…But now’

I Remember I Remember: happiness in childhood and nature

‘Those flowers made of light’

I Remember I Remember: reminisce childhood

‘But ‘tis little joy…Than when I was a boy.’

Island Man: dreams of the relaxation the island

‘island man wakes up to the sound of blue surf in his head’

Island Man: water of homeland brings safety

‘steady breaking and wombing’

Island Man: man wakes up, tone changes

‘He always comes back, groggily, groggily’

Island Man: contrasts tropical island and London

‘Grey metallic scar to surge of wheels’

Island Man: monotony of life

‘Another London Day’

We Refugees: contrasting positive and negative

‘I come from a musical place where they shoot me for my song’

We Refugees: creates a clear message, hatred and bigotry in the world for things we can’t control

‘We can all be refugees…we can all be hated by someone for being someone’

We Refugees: regaining his identity

‘I am told I have no country now I am told I am a lie I am told that modern history books May forget my name.’

We Refugees: fast uncontrollable change

‘Sometimes it only takes a day, Sometimes it only takes a handshake’

Peckham Rye Lane: underwear designed for everyone, unity

‘Grandmother mauve…rainbow’

Peckham Rye Lane: mix of cultures

‘Afro combs and mobile phones…punctuated cornrows’

Peckham Rye Lane: busy street, but individuality

‘each person is a sturdy hairbrush bristle on the pavement’s surface.’

Us: unity, bring us together

‘us take in undulations- each wave in the sea’

Us: ocean imagery- unites them in a collective movement

‘Mexican wave of we or us’

Us: concern about distance, personal and specific

‘When it comes to us, colour me unsure’

Us: optimism for the future, love can unite people

‘I hope you get, here, where I’m coming from. I hope you’re with me on this- ‘

In Wales, wanting to be Italian: light-hearted teenage feeling

‘Is there a name for that thing you do when you were younger? There must be a word for it in some language - probably German’

In Wales, wanting to be Italian: more excotic, ability to express herself differently

‘dying to be French…Longing to be Italian’

In Wales, wanting to be Italian: everyone wants to be something else, only some people have self-confidence

‘in Bombay, wanting to declare, like Freddie Mercury, that you are from somewhere like Zanzibar’

Kumukanda: those who don’t take part stay as children

‘to cross the river boys….must… die and come back grown’

Kumukanda: stereotypes of men, lack of love from his father

‘the man I almost grew to call dad, though we both needed a hug, shook my hand.’

Kumukanda: conflicting identitys

‘to speak in a tongue that isn’t mine?’

Kumukanda: massive family tree, does his belong?

my father, my father’s father, my father’s father’s father

Jamaican British: conflicting identity- other peoples choose for him

‘They think I say I’m black when I say Jamaican British but the English boys at school made me choose: Jamaican, British?’

Jamaican British: contrasting how people see him

‘Half-cast, Half mule, House slave - Jamaican British

Light skin, straight male, privileged - Jamaican British’

Jamaican British: pride of being white

‘Cousins in Kingston call me Jah-English,

proud to have someone in their family – British.’

Jamaican British: more conflict in being mixed

‘Plantation lineage, World War service, how do I serve

Jamaican British?’

My Mother’s Kitchen: their home has never been safe?

‘planning another escape

for the first time home is her destination,’

My Mother’s Kitchen: life is always changing, lacks care for material goods

‘She never feels regret for things’

My Mother’s Kitchen: nostalgic ending? vines lost forever

‘I will never inherit my mother’s trees’

The Émigrée: begins poem with happy memories

‘There was once a country…I left it as a child’

The Émigrée: life taken over by tyrants and war

‘It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants’

The Émigrée: contrasting light and dark, happiness and sadness

‘My shadow falls as evidence of sunlight’

The Émigrée: darker reality, suffering?

‘I have no passport, there’s no way back at all’

The Émigrée: positivity in former city, lost now

‘They accuse me of being dark in their free city’