Essay Questions

How is Immigrant's Song distinct from other poems about immigrants? What stylistic or syntactical techniques does the author use to achieve her purpose?

Tishani Doshi has created a unique an distinct literary piece about immigrants in her poem "The Immigrant's Song." Most poems focusing on immigration and the immigrants focus on the differences between the immigrants and people of the country they are moving to. These poems focus on language barriers, cultural oddities, and social manners that contrast with each other, leading to a difficult situation for the immigrants. If not highlighting these themes, poems will commonly address various hardships immigrants may face on their journey and the confusion these immigrants are faced with.

Tishani Doshi turns these literary boundaries on their heads by creating a poem that focuses on the home-sickness immigrants may feel and drawing Ton the factors that forced the immigrants to change. By bringing out the roots of the immigrants' lifestyle, Tishani Doshi is able to paint a broader picture of the struggles immigrants face. For example, she talks about how the men are taken away at night and often killed due to the war that is taking place. Additionally, she talks about the feel of the immigrants' original homeland. For example, she vividly describes the smell of the rains and the feel of the boabab trees.

Stylistically and in terms of syntax, Tishani Doshi uses irony and anaphora to achieve her purpose. The anaphora can be seen in the phrases "Let us not speak of those days," "Let us not speak of the long arms of sky," and "Let us not speak of men." This demonstrates the efforts of the immigrants to forget the memories, whether good or bad, of their homeland, in an attempt to rid themselves of the anchors that keep them tied to their original country. By using "Let us not speak" repeatedly at the beginning of her sentences, Tishani Doshi effectively drives this point home. Yet the irony in this is clearly evident. The message to not remember these myriad events, yet by mentioning them over and over the reader is immediately drawn to these events and focuses their mind on them. Although the message states otherwise, this is exactly what the author wishes would happen.

How does the author use her own life experiences to mold a poem?

Tishani Doshi, similarly to authors of many genres, uses her own life experience and background to effectively create pieces of literature that include realistic as well as abstract ideas. This is most evident in the poem "The Day We Went To The Sea."

As stated in the background, Tishani Doshi was born in Madras, India to a mother from Wales and a father from Gujarat, India. As an Indian herself, having grown up in the midst of the cultural, linguistic, and social uniqueness of India, she is able to translate that distinctness into major themes in her poems. Additionally, the fact that her mother is an immigrant from Wales allows her to extend her poems with frequent references to immigrants and immigration, having seen it first hand in her family.

Tishani Doshi combines these various experiences into her poem "The Day We Went To The Sea." The opening lines and the setting itself are in the author's hometown; "The day we went to the sea mothers in Madras were mining the Marina for missing children." She uses her knowledge of Madras as a busy sea port as well as a treacherous location, especially for children, due to the slippery salt-caked sea walls and the thunderous thrashing of waves breaking on shore. Furthermore, she mentions the structural arrangement of certain houses in India with the sentence "Thatch flew in the sky." Certain houses in India, especially those belonging to individuals of a lower income strata are made out of thatch, an economically viable and readily available material.

We can also see Tishani Doshi draw on her own feelings and memories from her childhood by including the weather climate of southern India that is so shocking for foreigners, but an integral part of the lifestyle for the people who live there. This is visible in the line "miraculously whole in the debris of gaudy South Indian sun." The author is describing the intense heat of the sun in the southern portions of India, which can often become unbearable due to the high humidity.