Aloyaidi 1
Faisal Aloyaidi
English 11B
February 18, 2013
Colorful Cultures
Learning and understanding about different cultures is not only interesting, but it makes you a more open minded and accepting person. One of the ways to learn about different cultures is through writing, or in this case poetry. Reading about different cultures enables us to truly capture the image the poets are trying to convey; and in my opinion, cultures might be better expressed through writing than they are through other ways, like food and clothing. So far in class we have learned about two different cultures, a Pakistani culture and a South African culture. The poems we have discussed both speak about the problems the poets have endured throughout their life. √ Moniza Alvi’s Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan speaks of her confusion as a child and her search for her true identity. She had a Pakistani father and an English mother. She was so eager to fit in with her English friends, and she “longed for denim and corduroy”,√ yet she doesn’t want to disappoint her Pakistani culture; she wants to live two lives, but realizes that she can’t. √ Similarly, Tatamkhulu Afrika’s Nothing’s Changed explains the angry scene of the aftermath of Apartheid (racial segregation) that took place in South Africa. Since Afrika witnessed the apartheid, the poem becomes personal√ and it appeals more to the reader. Furthermore, these poems both convey a message effectively through imagery. With the use of the imagery, the reader is more able to visualize what the poet is trying to express.
Alvi’s strong use of imagery in Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan truly aided the reader in understanding what she was trying to convey. The poem describes a girl living in confusion of her true identity; √ she has “no fixed nationality” √ and she has trouble fitting in with the rest of her school friends. √ It is described in the poem that she is a teenager:
Like at school, fashions changed
in Pakistan -
the salwar bottoms were broad and stiff,
then narrow.
My aunts chose an apple-green sari,
silver-bordered
for my teens
There is a major contrast between her two identities. It’s almost like she’s playing tug of war with her half Pakistani, half English nationality. √ While her friends are wearing plain t-shirts and jeans, she has to wear bright colored Saris’ and Salwar Kameezs’. √ These traditional clothes symbolize her half Pakistani heritage. The colors that are expressed in this poem are either bright or plain and simple. These colors represent where the girl in the poem comes from, and it represents who she has to choose to live her life as. She could choose to go under peer pressure and dress in ‘denim and corduroy’ like her school friends or she could ‘glisten like an orange’ and express her Pakistani roots with pride and courage. The girl in the poem is similar to the camel-skin lamp described in the poem because the process of how the lamp was made is cruel. √ When the lamp is turned on the colors are beautiful, however no matter how beautiful the colors are, she realizes that the cruelty involved in making the lamp takes away from that beauty; √ likewise, when the girl in the poem dresses in traditional Pakistani clothing she seems beautiful, but her transformation from an English school girl to a Pakistani teen is cruel similar to the lamp. √
Although Afrika’s poem has less imagery, he utilized imagery in a way that helps readers better understand the post-apartheid scene, and I believe it has more meaning behind it. Nothing’s Changed describes the scene of a man going back to his home “District Six” after it has been completely destroyed. The imagery in this poem, in contrast to Alvi’s color imagery, is mostly white imagery:
I press my nose
to the clear panes, know,
before I see them, there will be
crushed ice white glass,
linen falls,
the single rose.
He describes a fancy or “posh” √ restaurant where whites are only in. “No says it is, but [they] know where [they] belong.” He describes the fresh, clean linen and the fancy glasses. The single rose may symbolize anger or violence, we may assume that the rose is red, but we haven’t been told in the poem. The man in the poem eventually walks down the road to the working man’s café where he has some bunny chow. Once he’s finished, he’ll have to use his jeans as a napkin. His anger is described as “hot” and “white”. √ He is possibly angry because of the unfairness that colored and black people received during these times in Cape Town and in District Six, and after all this destruction and segregation… nothing’s changed. √
Reading poems about different cultures is educational because we get to learn about different countries, and what these poets are going through or what they have went through. Learning about Pakistani culture and traditional colorful clothing has been a great experience. Alvi’s description and usage of color imagery made it very easy to understand what she was trying to convey. √ With the use of color imagery readers are able to understand and visualize the story of the poem, and in then that makes it an enjoyable experience to learn about different cultures. Afrika’s use of imagery was minimal; however it had more meaning behind it because it was explaining a very serious topic that the poet experienced himself. I personally never knew what apartheid meant, and I never knew that it occurred in South Africa. By reading poems written by poets like Alvi and Afrika, I and several other of my classmates will be able to not only get exposure to different kinds of color imagery but to different topics and cultures that we may have never learned about before. √