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READ THIS
The poem portrays the hardships that foreigners face when living and working in a strange country. The
poet speaks of the psychological barriers, as well as the racial hatred which is endemic when foreigners
try to make their way as workers and outsiders in a different society.
A NOTE ON THE POET
Carol Ann Duffy was born in Glasgow in December 1955, the eldest child in her family. From an early age
she revealed a passion fo reading and soon began to indicate her qualities as a writer, qualities which
would eventually blossom into the literary skills of her adult life.
Although she was raised and educated a Catholic, she soon moved away from religion and into a more
philosophical outlook, although she personally did not see much of a difference. "Poetry and prayer are
very similar," she once said.
As early as sixteen, she became involved in a passionate relationship with the 39 year old poet Adrian
Henri. It was because of this that she decided to study Philosophy at Liverpool University so as to be near
him.
With her degree in her pocket, she worked first for Granada Television as a game-show and joke writer.
Then she began working in schools in East London (England) before becoming a full-time writer and
dramatist.
She became editor of the poetry magazine Ambit and has lectured poetry at
Manchester Metropolitan University. She is currently Professor of Contemporary Poetry and Creative
Director of the Writing School at the Manchester Metropolitan University.
She was almost appointed Poet Laureate for Britain in 1999 but Prime Minister Tony Blair apparently
rejected her nomination. She was at last given that honour in 2009.
Carol Ann Duffy has won several other awards for her work. She was honoured with an O.B.E. in 1995,
became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1999 and was awarded the C.B.E. in 2001.
Have you looked at the questions
in the right column?
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TEST YOURSELF!
Read the left column and then answer
the following questions:
"Imagine living in a strange, dark city for twenty years.
There are some dismal dwellings on the east side
and one of them is yours."
- Comment on the impact of starting the poem with the word "imagine". (4)
[Need help?]
The imagination is one of the strongest faculties we have. If you can only imagine it, you can do it. Or
so they say. By calling on the reader to "imagine", therefore, the poet is opening a powerful world
of vision and emotion, and the poem takes on a life of its own within the reader's mind.
At the same time, by placing the poem firmly within the world of imagination, the poet is able to escape
any firm location. Is the setting of this poem London? Or perhaps Manchester? Maybe Liverpool? Or
what about Mumbai, Berlin, Johannesburg or New York?
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- The poet speaks about the foreigner living in a strange city. Why is the city not given a
name? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet probably did initially have a specific city in mind but the theme of her poem is universal. It is
something that could have happened anywhere. Such racial hatred is common in many English cities.
But it is also common in Germany, in France, in South Africa and America.
The poet therefore allows the reader to use his or her own imagination and place the incident anywhere
where his or her imagination would locate it.
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- Is there any significance to the time-span of "twenty years"? (2)
[Need help?]
"Twenty years" would mean a very long time. It's a round figure. The exact time is quite irrelevant.
Just as the location of the city is kept vague, so is the time-span.
Is there any significance to the fact that "twenty years" is precisely half of the biblical forty
years, a time period which also stood for a very long time? The Israelites wandered in the Sinai desert
for forty years. Jesus went out into the wilderness for forty days.
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- Why would the city be both "strange" and "dark"? (6)
[Need help?]
Was it not Joseph Conrad who spoke about feeling like "a stranger in a strange land"? The
"stranger" is the outsider, the one who is different, the one who is distrusted. At the same time,
however, the city and its inhabitants would also be distrusted by the stranger.
"Dark" bears sinister connotations. Murder and rapes take place in the dark. The dark is haunted
by ghosts and evil spirits. Darkness is also synonymous with the unknown.
Of course, it is possible that the poet wishes to convey the message that the subject of the poem works
very long hours. Her life of freedom therefore happens only after dark. She goes to work in the dark and
comes home again in the dark.
There is therefore no light in her life, either real light or metaphorical light.
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- Comment on the alliteration in " dismal dwellings". (4)
[Need help?]
The alliterated "d" causes one to spit the words out. There is a certain amount of contempt in the
sound which reinforces the contempt with which one should view the squalid buildings.
But don't forget the poetic effect. Alliteration carries a pleasing ring to it -- a musical or lyrical quality --
forcing the reader to focus on the words. It therefore reinforces the image which the poet is conveying.
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- What is the purpose of using the personal pronouns "you" and "your" throughout this
poem? (4)
[Need help?]
The poet wishes the reader to become personally involved in the poem. It is not a poem about anyone
but rather about "you". By forcing you to become involved, the poem immediately becomes a
personal voyage and we personally feel the effects of the abuse because it is now administered to us
personally.
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"The voice in your head
recites the letter in a local dialect; behind that
is the sound of your mother singing to you,
all that time ago, and now you do not know
why your eyes are watering and what's the word for this."
- What is this "voice in your head"? (4)
[Need help?]
The voice could be the person's own silent vocalisation of the letter she is writing or it could perhaps be
the remembered sound of her mother's voice. It would need a "voice in your head" because the
letter is in her own native language and is not in English. It is almost as if it comes from another world,
the world of her mind, the world of her memory, the world of her childhood.
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- Why would this voice recite the letter "in a local dialect"? (2)
[Need help?]
If the person is writing a letter home, it would have to be written in her native language as her parents or
relatives or friends back home would not be able to understand English.
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- Why are "your eyes are watering"? (4)
[Need help?]
The reciting of the letter in her native dialect floods her with memories of childhood. She hears her mother
singing to her. The happy memories make her homesick and she longs to be free of the unhappy
circumstances which now surround her in a strange land. Her homesickness and memories of happiness
cause her to start weeping -- as least, as much as to wet the eyes.
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- Why do you "not know . . . what's the word for this". (4)
[Need help?]
She has lived so much of her life devoid of emotion, unable to give expression to the feelings inside her,
that she has forgotten even the words which describe these feelings. The tears are automatic as she
hears the sound of her mother's voice, but she has forgotten the word which describes those tears.
She has also been living in this strange land for so long that she is caught between two languages: the
language of the people among whom she is living and her own native dialect. As the tears begin to well
up, therefore, she is unable to think of the word to describe them because she is currently betwixt and
between the two languages.
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