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’