Sunday, 25 November 2018

All must be able to

This poem is describing the poet's visit to India and the time she had her hand
hennaed by a girl in the market place. It has proved to be an experience she has
never forgotten.

Stuck?
Extension:
1.Count how many times the poet uses the phrase ‘an unknown girl’. What is the
significance of this phrase and why do you think it is repeated so many times?

2.Alvi uses colour to highlight how she remembers this event. Write down all the
different ones that are mentioned in the poem and colour the lines of the poem to
correspond with them. What sort of colours are they? Rich? Warm? Cold? Bright?
What might the significance of this be?

3.The poet is keen to emphasise how much she remembers the country where this
happened. Are these fond or difficult memories and how do we know? Write down
all the words or phrases that tell you that this poem is set in India.

4.In lines 5–7 the poet describes the girl as if she were ‘icing’ her hand. Write
down as many reasons as you can think of as to why she has likened the
tattooing to icing. E.g. someone who ices cakes is creating patterns and pictures
...
1.Do you get any idea of what the tattoo looks like? Do you think this is
important? If so why?

2.Whydoyouthinkshehasusedthesimileofherclingingtohertattoolike ‘people who

cling to the sides of a train’?

3.Whatdoesitsayabouthowshefeelsabouthertattooandtheexperience?

4.The henna tattoo is linked with India in the poet’s mind. What is the significance
of ‘it will fade’ and how does the poet feel about this? Can you explain what the
poet means in lines 43–46?

5.Thepoemisn'tlikesomeoftheothersinthatitdoesn'trhymeandhasn'tgot any verses

– what does this make it sound like? Sometimes the meaning of the line ‘runs on’
to the next. Find and label and example of this. What is this technique called?

10. Why might the poet want to write her poem like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otfIfMuaDq8&frags=pl%2Cwn

Annotate your poem.

Homework: Do the grey section in your textbook

An Unknown Girl:
Monika Alvi was born in Pakistan and moved to England when a baby. This poem seems to
engage with her search for her cultural identity and uses the idea of the Hennaing of her hands
to explore the feeling she has for her native continent.
The poem is written in free-verse and centred on the page, possibly reflecting the nature of the
henna pattern itself. Within the free verse stanza, however there is structure. The poet repeats
the phrase “In the evening bazaar” three times and each time adds more detail to the
subsequent description of the treatment. We should also note that the poem is framed by the
bazaar itself, though by the end, “evening” has been replaced in the line by “neon”.
This suggests a purpose for the setting in the evening. Since that time-between-times is neither
day nor night, this suggests that Alvi is likewise torn between her two cultures. By the end of the
poem, night has fallen and the neon beams strongly as she recognises the strength of her native
Pakistani/Indian culture. The neon was used in L2 to represent the decoration of the unfamiliar
world in which she was sitting. Now it defines her world.
The three stages of her response are clearly defined. At first she is relating the experience to
Western cake decoration. The description of the “wet, brown line” has little beauty in it and
although her “satin-peach” trousers suggest beauty to se and to touch, the idea is not explored
and is distanced from Alvi by the use of the metaphor relating the colour to the knee, rather
than to the clothing.
As the experience continues, Alvi mentions “a few rupees” suggesting either a sense of guilt,
perhaps or of awareness of the poverty of so many in this region. She now recognises the lines
as a metaphorical peacock – a thing of beauty. As she is caught up in this beautiful display colour
enters the poem in the balloons, but even these are leaving. What is concrete, oddly, is the
canopy under which she sits, like a Queen or Maharajah which seems to be made of old
advertising banners – again reinforcing the idea of poverty and a divide between poet and
Unknown Girl.
In the third section, not only does she recognise the skills of the painter, but also describes
herself as “clinging” to the “firm peacock lines”. “Clinging” and later “longing” show the change
that is coming over Alvi as she sits. The wish to reconnect with her past becomes tangible and in
the simile is likened to those undertaking a journey in this vast continent – clinging to the
outside of the train because of poverty, despite the huge risks involved. She describes scraping
off the brown lines to reveal the beauty underneath – almost as though she herself recognises
the metamorphosis of her own experience and the emergence of her inner beauty as linked to
her birth-culture.
She knows this to be a transitory moment in her life. However the experience has left her with
longing and a wish to reaffirm her contact with the Indian subcontinent and her birth heritage.
Assess another student’s work. Write and complete the following…

1 thing you did well:

1 target to improve your work:

What do I What would I like What have I
know? to know? learnt?
starter
main plenary