Summary
The poem “Hurricane Hits England” by Grace Nichols consists of eight stanzas written in free verse. The first stanza is written from a third-person, omniscient point of view, describing a woman. The hurricane is what brought the woman closer to the landscape. She lays awake for half the night. The angry, howling wind resembles a dark, ancestral ghost which is both scared and reassuring.
The second stanza switches to first-person point of view—presumably, the perspective of the woman referred to in the previous stanza. She asks the gods Huracan, Oya, and Shango to talk to her. She also asks her cousin Hattie back home to talk to her.
She then asks of them why they would visit England (with the storm). She asks for the meaning of their old voices causing chaos and destruction in a new place. She describes blinding light in the midst of the darkness of the storm. She asks for the purpose of falling trees. In the single-line sixth stanza, she asks why her own heart is “unchained.”
In the seventh stanza, she declares that she is aligning herself to Oya, the god of the weather, so that the speaker can follow the movement of the winds and ride the mystery of the storm.
This “sweet” mystery she welcomes, because it will break the “frozen lake” within her and shake the foundations of the trees within her. The mystery will also inform and remind her that “the earth is the earth is the earth.”
Analysis
“Hurricane Hits England” is a poem by Grace Nichols, an esteemed poet who is originally from Guyana and later emigrated to England. The poem describes a Caribbean-level storm hitting England, reminding the speaker of her homeland and, ultimately, of a certain universality to the earth.
The first stanza begins by describing a woman during a stormy night from an omniscient, third-person perspective. By the title, the reader can reasonably assume that the woman is in England. Hurricanes are a tropical weather phenomenon occurring closer to the equator. Hurricanes cannot form at the high latitudes of England because the waters are not warm enough. Thus, describing the storm as a “hurricane” is a reference to the woman’s familiarity with tropical storms. The hurricane has brought “her closer / to the landscape,” which suggests that the woman has experienced estrangement from the place where she is currently, i.e. England.
Importantly, this revelation is revealed in the past tense, which signifies the narration within the first stanza takes place after the speaker’s epiphany later in the poem. In this way, the opening third-person narration is retrospective. The omniscience of the narration in the first stanza and the emotional intimacy throughout the poem in both third- and first-person suggest that both narrations come from the same person. This begs the question: why open with the third-person? A third-person perspective creates distance from its subjects. By speaking about herself in the third person, the poem’s speaker enacts formally the alienation central to the poem.
The sound of the wind creates a metaphorical “howling ship” that gathers rage. The mixed metaphor and personification of the storm suggest its emotional significance for the woman, as well as its natural power. In a simile, the force is compared to a “dark ancestral spectre,” a familiar ghost from a past life who is both “fearful and reassuring.” This initial stanza introduces the speaker’s internal conflict of living in a place that is not her hometown. The “hurricane” will serve as a catalyst for an epiphany regarding the subject.
In the second stanza, the perspective shifts to the first person, spoken by the woman herself. This shift reifies the woman into an immediate and actual presence within the poem, whose “I” provides insight and intimacy. She calls upon gods and family to “talk to her.” First, she asks “Huracan,” who is a Mayan god of winds and storms. The Maya peoples lived in what is now known as Central America and Mexico between antiquity and the early modern period. Then, she calls upon the Yoruban gods “Oya” and “Shango,” who rule lighting, storms, death and rebirth, and lighting and thunder respectively. The Yoruba religion originated in current-day Nigeria, and is the basis for several Afro-Carribean and Afro-Brazilian religions today, including Santería. Calling upon gods of differing origins with connections to the Americas suggests the speaker is casting a wide net in search of answers. Finally, she calls upon her cousin “Hattie,” who is “back-home,” which explicitly reveals that the speaker herself is not home. The interesting hyphenation of back-home presents the phrase as a single word, which reflects the colloquial spoken usage of the phrase (e.g. “Hattie is my cousin back home”). “Sweeping” refers to the expansiveness or broadness of something, so perhaps this cousin influences the speaker despite geographic separation.
The third stanza introduces the first of a series of questions that will carry the next few stanzas. She first asks: “Tell me why you visit an English coast?” The speaker views the storm as having arrived at her current location from far away, specifically from her homeland. This could be viewed as a rhetorical question due to the futility of asking for a direct answer from gods, who across cultures rarely seem to communicate with humans in spoken answers, and who instead must interpret their actions. She then asks: “What is the meaning of old tongues reaping havoc in new places?” This suggests she has been followed by old, familiar forces to her new place of living. “Old tongues” is a synecdoche—a literary device in which a part stands for the whole—for voices that called the storm. By asking what is the meaning of the storm, the speaker suggests that this event is meaningful.
The fourth stanza describes a “blinding illumination.” The appearance of light within the dark storm suggests the emergence of an epiphany in the speaker, one so powerful as to be “blinding.” The storm short-circuits into the depths of darkness. The interesting use of emjambment mid-word (“short- / circuit”) mimics the effect of a malfunction—as if the storm's meaning itself has split or broken. The contrast between light and dark present within this stanza strengthens the emergence of this epiphany.
The fifth stanza returns to a rhetorical question: “What is the meaning of trees falling heavy as whales?” This again suggests there is meaning to be found in the storm and its destruction of nature. The simile “trees falling heavy as whales” demonstrates the power of the storm to upheave nature. There is repetition in the latter two lines, “their crusted roots / their crated graves.” This is an example of anaphora, repetition of the beginning of a phrase, as well as alliteration of the /cr/ sound, to describe both the life and the death of the trees in the storm.
“O why is my heart unchained?” proclaims the sixth stanza. The stark single line interrupts the flow of the previous multi-line stanzas. Its starkness makes the sudden turn toward the speaker’s interior more powerful and poignant. She seems to cry out to the gods and to the storm for an answer as to why her heart is “unchained,” likely due to a sense of alienation from the place and landscape where she lives.
In the seventh stanza, the speaker addresses Oya, the Yoruban spirit of storms, and pledges her allegiance to her. She declares her intentions to follow the movement of Oya’s winds and “ride the mystery of your storm.” This metaphor compares the mystery and movement of the storm to a physical being that can be ridden.
In the final stanza, the speaker shifts tone from distraught and confused to accepting. “Ah, sweet mystery,” she begins, characterizing the dark and obscure storm as “sweet.” She understands the purpose of the storm and what it has “come” to do. She welcomes the storm to break the “frozen lake” within her. This metaphor could represent a coldness or emotional stagnation within her. In a more literal sense, England is a much colder place, so the “hurricane” and memory of home could be a warming presence. The storm has uprooted the “trees” within her, as she senses that something has changed within her being after the storm. Finally, she relays that she understands the storm has “come” to let her know that “the earth is the earth is the earth.” This repetition could be an allusion to Gertrude Stein’s famous poetic sentence, “A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.” In any case, it is a declaration of identity, such that the earth is the earth regardless of where it is—such that the home in which the speaker resides currently is the earth, and her hometown is the earth just the same. This speaks to a universality of experience beyond geographic separation or estrangement from one's homeland.
