The poem is about a young Caribbean woman whose culture is contigently consumed by that of her surroundings. At the time of the hurricane she felt destitute, vulnerable and could not understand why she had sanctioned her culture to such an unreachable part of her soul.
Throughout the poem Grace Nichols shows her thoughts and feelings using a wide variety of imagery, similes and metaphors. This enables the reader to attain a clearer and deeper understanding of the poem.The poem is set in England and is being read by Grace Nichols herself. The poet shows the importance of the hurricane multifariously, the development of her thoughts during the poem show this very well. In the beginning of the poem she feels trepidation and very insecure about the fact that the hurricane has come to England.
The first line states"It took a hurricane to bring her closer to the landscape.This line leads me to believe that before the hurricane's occurrence in Britain, she had become so comfortable living in England that she had acquired a "false identity"so to speak, whereby she had relinquished the chore of having to recollect the minor aspects of her culture that made it both important and precious. The first line is the foundation of the poem as it is the very reason that she regained avidity for her culture again.She has personified the hurricane by referring to it as"Some dark ancestral spectre" at this point she is thinking of the hurricane as an ancestral ghost {an ancestor whom is a ghost}I believe her to be doing this as, you are reminded of your roots frequently by the stories passed down from your ancestors. In giving the hurricane this title she is claiming that it is a ghost coming to remind her of her culture, the hurricane was able to do so as storms of such strength occur very seldomnly in Britain but are customary in places such as the Caribbean.The poet's thoughts do develop very steadily and I believe the point where she says "O why is my heart unchained? " is the point where she unlocked the chains that had been holding back her ancestral values, her culture and roots etc.
I think before the point that I spoke of previously, the poet had fooled herself into believing that she felt a certain complacency about living so far away from home, she continually questioned the hurricane's presence and felt that forgetting her culture was somewhat reprehensible.As stated before, after the line "O why is my heart unchained? The poet completely accepts both her culture and roots back into her life. She believes that due to the storm, the emotions that she had kept isolated from the rest of the world were finally exposed. The poet knew that she was prehensile to the concept of her culture and could finally add the missing piece of the puzzle. It is indeed correct to say, that at the beginning of the poem the poet was disconsolate but above all intimidated and did not understand the reason for which the hurricane had come, although she proved to have had a slight inkling.By the end of the poem she regains her ancestral values and understands fully.
The structure of the poem reflects her thoughts in relation to the development of her thoughts about the hurricane. The first stanza is written in third person narrative, this enables the reader to acquire a deeper insight into the poem as it sets the scene. The structure thereafter creates a very powerful effect and the poet continues to question the storm's presence. Grace Nichols has shown this by giving each stanza a question upon which she had pondered before coming to an absolution in the last two stanzas.She shows she is no longer afraid by using phrases such as"I am aligning myself to you" {I am bringing myself to you} and, " I am riding the mystery of your storm" {I have elucidated the mystery of my culture} Grace Nichols inexplicable use of language and imagery gives the opportunity to accumulate ones own ideas and interpretations of the text. Her language gives us the first clue to her ethnic decent as she talks of Afro-Caribbean Gods when she says, "Talk to me huracan, Talk to me Oya, Talk to me Shango and Hattie, my sweeping back home cousin" We assume that these are her cultural Gods as she states"my sweeping back home cousin.
She refers to them as family and in most cases your family is of the same culture as yourself. The poet includes a lot of imagery and in my belief this is fundamental as it eradicates the concept of right and wrong answers, it takes away the simplicity and adds complex meaning to the text. In doing this, one is able to interpret the poem in different ways. Here are some examples of imagery used by the poet, "Trees falling heavily as whales". By using this form of imagery {form: with a simile} the reader is able to imagine how heavily the trees must have been falling.
Using comparisons like these help create more of a pictorial image rather than one of many different thoughts. It is only imagery as we can be sure that the trees bear no likeness in weight to that of a heavy whale, if weight was being conveyed seriously. Another use of imagery that enables the reader to accumulate pictorial knowledge is: when she says"Their crusted roots, their cratered graves" At this particular point she is trying to portray the fact that the hurricane is so strong in it's quest to restore her memories, that it has ripped the trees and their roots from the earth.Their cratered graves is the point where she is making the comparison between that of a grave, and the hole which the tree had left indented in the ground.
This is interesting as anyone can relate to the deepness of a grave regardless of whether they have seen one or not, it is common knowledge that a grave can be up to 6 feet deep. This is why Grace Nichols applied this certain piece of the text, it's relevancy is very interesting and helps you to visualise very well. I believe all she was trying to convey was the sheer strength of the stormAnother very influential {to me} use of imagery is where the poet say" I am riding the mystery of your storm" I believe that this is the particular instance when she wholly, not just accepts but understands. The line indicates that she feels she has finally solved the mystery, and that she is on top of it so to speak. This is the point where she becomes perspicuous rather than dumbfounded.
The last use of imagery that I will be explaining has gained slight favouritism with me. It is: "Come to break the frozen lake within me".When a lake is frozen over in the winter time, we make the mistake of believing that there is no life beneath, however in the depths of the lake there always is life it is just not visible to us. In the context of the poem the poet is not saying what I believed previously. {That she had obliterated her culture from memory} but that it was always installed in her, like a chip that cannot be removed, it was just never visible to the rest of the world or even herself.
The closing line of the poem is her absolution that she sought for throughout.Wherever I am on earth my culture is always mine and will always be mine:"The earth s the earth, is the earth" I did not immediately enjoy this poem,but as I grasped a deeper knowledge and understanding I felt free to make my own interpretations. The main points of my poem were about the powereful effect of her developing thoughts and how they enabled her to regain her cultural values. How the child trapped in an adults body {child: not knowing much about anything}grew and learned about her culture again. I did end up finding this poem very interesting, and it opened my eyes as to how easy it is to loose sight of who you really are.
