Emigree

Poet

CAROL RUMENS

Context

• Millions of people have been displaced, because their mother-land is a war zone.
• Families leave due to political corruption and oppressive dictatorship.
• People choose to immigrate to other countries, often in the West, in the hopes of a better, safer life.
• Unfortunately, some feel that they are neither welcome in their new location nor the country whence they came.

Plot

• The poem is written from the perspective of a person remembering childhood memories of their motherland.
• The country faced militant rebellion and this is why she had to leave.
• She faces an inner conflict: she compares her young positive memories with her adult understanding.
• As the poem develops, there is a transition in maturity from youth to adulthood.
• Innocence to experience motif.

Form

• Enjambment
• Motif of sunlight
• Ellipsis and caesura

Structure

• Three stanzas
• Two eight-lined and the final is nine-lined

Language

• Personification
• Metaphor
• Synaesthesia
• Repetition
• Pathetic fallacy

Tone

• Cheerful
• Fear
• Melancholy
• Disappointment

Themes

• Power of humans
• Power of memory
• War
• Identity
• Childhood
• Racism