An Unusual Perspective: Understanding "A Martian Sends a Postcard Home" Marine Bruno 12th Grade

In A Martian Sends a Postcard Home, Craig Raine depicts a variety of everyday objects and events as they are viewed by an alien, making the perspective of the narrator odd, if not impossible, because we are not sure if Martians really exist. By doing so, however, Raine makes the reader see how our everyday activities” look to an outsider. This poem uses the perspective of a Martian to show that perspective is powerful, in order to change the reader’s view of perspective to one that includes an outside view on our activities and objects.

In the first three stanzas, Raine uses the alien’s thoughts on books to suggest that a book resembles a bird and that books can affect human emotions, though the Martian’s accounts of human emotions are limited to mere descriptions of visible effects like “[causing] the eyes to melt” (1), for the Martian understands little of what he sees. The first stanza describes a boo, called a “Caxton” (1) in the poem, as a “mechanical bird” (1) with wings, which are pages, and mentions that the markings in the book are important. In the second stanza, the Martian tries to understand human signs of emotion, but he can only report without any understanding what he sees: “eyes melt[ing] . . . bod[ies] . . ....