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Summary of 'These are the times we live in (I)'

Summary

  • The poem portrays a tense border control encounter, highlighting the speaker's experience with prejudice and dehumanization in a post-9/11 world.
  • The speaker presents the scene in second person, showing a border agent scrutinizing their passport with suspicion due to prevalent Islamophobia.
  • The speaker reflects on the agent's mistrust, noting how they are reduced to their passport and perceived as a stereotype.
  • The poem critiques the illogical and damaging nature of prejudice, which erases individuality and humanity.

Themes

  • Cruelty and Irrationality of Discrimination: The poem illustrates how racist and Islamophobic prejudice is reductive, dehumanizing, and absurd.
    • The speaker encounters suspicion due to the Islamophobic climate, reflecting experiences post-September 11 attacks.
    • The agent's scrutiny is based on stereotypes, such as a name containing a "Z" or a recent change of address, showcasing broad and childish prejudices.
  • Burden of Prejudice: The poem emphasizes how dealing with prejudice erodes a person's sense of self, safety, and identity.
    • The speaker feels small and unseen, reduced to the nationality on their passport.
    • The agent's suspicion, even when ludicrous, wounds the speaker, making them feel torn in half and less than a whole person.

Line-by-Line Analysis

  • Lines 1-8: The speaker hands over their passport, and the agent scrutinizes their travel history due to racist suspicions.
    • The speaker's resignation highlights the post-9/11 Islamophobia and racism.
    • The use of the second person invites readers to empathize with the speaker's humiliation.
  • Lines 9-15: The speaker feels reduced to the size of their passport, with the agent focusing on superficial details like a "Z" in their name or a recent move.
    • The officer's discomfort with movement and change symbolizes xenophobia.
    • The use of "it" to refer to the speaker's name reflects dehumanization.
  • Lines 16-19: The agent's attitude reflects a fear that the world isn't as it should be, driving his suspicion.
    • The repetition of "the times we live in" stresses resignation and the cliché response to depressing realities.
  • Lines 20-22: The agent compares the speaker to their passport photo, highlighting his obvious suspicion.
  • Lines 23-30: The speaker sarcastically imagines being "made over completely" on the airplane, underscoring the ridiculousness of the agent's scrutiny.
    • The speaker feels silenced and dehumanized, with their features transformed into an object of suspicion.
  • Lines 31-35: The speaker's face is replaced by the agent's mistrustful look, and the passport photo disintegrates, missing the speaker's heart.
    • Racist people fail to see the speaker's humanity, focusing instead on suspicious features.
  • Lines 36-39: Half of the speaker's face splits away and lands on a newspaper, symbolizing dehumanization and being seen as a type in the news.

Symbols

  • Passport: symbolizes dehumanization, alienation, reduced identity, and the gap between how the speaker is seen and who they really are.

Poetic Devices

  • Metaphor: Used to convey the speaker's dehumanization and division from their real identity under the agent's scrutiny.
  • The speaker shrinks to the size of the passport: Lines 9-10: "You shrink to the size/ of the book in his hand."
  • The speaker's heart isn't visible in the passport photo: Lines 33-35: "Even that is coming apart./The pieces are there/but they missed out your heart."
  • Repetition: Reinforces the speaker's sorrow and resignation, particularly with the refrain "the times we live in."
  • Enjambment: Creates rhythm, highlights ideas, and sets the speaker's tone.
  • Assonance: Enhances musicality and emphasizes key lines, adding notes of humor and sadness.
  • Parallelism: Builds tension and emphasizes frustration, such as in the lines describing changes to the speaker's face.

Vocabulary

  • The times we live in: alludes to the circumstances in the years around this poem's first appearance (2006) where Islamophobia increased.
  • It contains a Z: suggests the border agent finds the speaker's name "foreign".

Form

  • The poem is written in free verse without regular rhyme or meter, using changing stanza to highlight moments of suspense.
    Its in second person to involve the reader.

Setting

  • The poem is set at border control illustrating the post-9/11 world and increased racism.