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Comparing Warsan Shire's Poems 'Home And Ugly'

869 Words4 Pages

Warsan Shire’s poetry undertakes exploring the values and attitudes of their time, through her exploration of values and attitudes; she challenges social discourse around controversial themes. Warsan Shire is a Somalia born British poet, due to being the daughter of refugees she reflects her poetry on trauma and the consequences if discrimination and equality that most refugees have endured through their experiences. The poems “Home” and “Ugly” are remarkably effective in exploring perspectives that have long been marginalised and the values and attitudes of their time. Her poem “Home” centres on the unforgiving trauma and suffering refugee’s experience. Similarly, “Ugly” is circled around the notion of first hand suffering and trauma

Warsan Shire explores numerous perspectives that have long been marginalised, in particular, refugees and immigrants. The poem challenges the social discourse surrounding refugees today, particularly Syrian refugees seeking refuge from the Syrian …show more content…

The poem “Home” undertakes exploring the values and attitudes and Shire who is a Somalian refugee challenges common assumptions about refugees. The anaphora “no one” accentuates that becoming a refugee is not a choice, but in fact is forced upon the individual, it challenges general assumptions about refugees. The enjambment throughout the third stanza, “No one leaves home unless home chases you, fire under feet, hot blood in your belly…” reflects the process of running away from home, it implies the frenetic continuing movement of refugees. Overall, Shire subverts trauma and suffering of the refugee experience, perspectives that have been on the periphery, she challenges the simplistic suppositions surrounding refugees through her representation. Shire universalises stories that create near universal empathy through her

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In “Drifters” the family’s constantly changing location results in them unable to set up roots in a community and live a fulfilling lifestyle. The symbolism of the “green tomatoes” shows the mother’s frustration about being unable to set up roots in a permanent location and live a fulfilling and productive life, resulting in a lack of belonging to a community. Similarly, the contrast between her hands which were “bright with berries” when they first arrived, with “the blackberrycanes with their last shrivelled fruit” when they depart highlight how her hopes of a happy and productive life have deteriorated with the prospect of having to leave. In contrast to the mother’s perspective on leaving, the youngest daughter’s is “beaming because she wasn’t” happy there. Through exploring the contrasting perspectives of the mother and the youngest daughter, the Dawe shows how moving communities have different effects on people.

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Leif Enger’s Peace Like A River tells the story of Reuben, who searches for Davy, his brother, a fugitive, all the while witnessing his father’s miracles. Peace Like a River depicts an unbreakable connection between Reuben and his father Jeremiah; the two of them would do anything for each other. Throughout the novel, Reuben and Jeremiah’s health seem tied to each other. Reuben is at his strongest when Jeremiah falls ill, but when Jeremiah seems healthy and happy, Reuben’s asthma controls him, and in the end, Jeremiah gives up his life for Reuben. Firstly, Reuben is healthiest when Jeremiah becomes sick.

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Richard Wright’s poem “Between the World and Me” mourns the tragic scene of a gruesome lynching, and expresses its harsh impact on the narrator. Wright depicts this effect through the application of personification, dramatic symbolism, and desperate diction that manifests the narrator’s agony. In his description of the chilling scene, Wright employs personification in order to create an audience out of inanimate objects. When the narrator encounters the scene, he sees “white bones slumbering forgottenly upon a cushion of ashes,” and a sapling “pointing a blunt finger accusingly at the sky.”

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