The Émigrée- Carol Rumens

COMPARE TO: Tissue, London, Storm on The

Island, Poppies

Themes:
 Corruption:
The poem follows the speaker’s memories of where they grew up and the corruption of the
country they love so much.
“it may be sick with tyrants”
 Childhood memories:
It talks about the speaker’s love of their country.
“The worst news I receive of it cannot break my original view”
 Heritage:
It talks about their ethnicity and life as an emigrant.
“I have no passport, there’s no way back...”

Context:
Rumens moved around a lot as a child so experienced many different cultures.

Structure:
 3 verses (8, 8, 9 lines)
 No rhyme schemes.
 Enjambment to show it’s a thought track/memory.

Quotes:
1. “There once was a country... I left it as a child”

2. “I am branded by an impression of sunlight”

3. “That child’s vocabulary I carried here”

4. “I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight.

5. “My city takes me dancing through the city of walls.”

6. “They mutter death.”