Postcolonial themes Migration and movement

Reading and sources:

Greenblatt, Stephen. “Grace Nichols, intro and poems”, in Norton English, vol F.10th, 2018.
Pp. 882-885

Class notes:

in Postcolonial literature
 we often see an emphasis on Migration and movement:
o a celebration for the possibilities for identity, for being, for art , that are created
through moving around, and in particular for not belonging in one particular
place
 but rather particularly in different places, being unrooted, moving
around.
 this often contradict with the theme - the idea of the nation - in the emphasis in
Migration
o there is often an idea that being fluid
o being open to change is contrasted with the idea of being settled or rooted in
place
o and often there is a suggestion in postcolonial writing that Migration and
movement, produce a more open, a more ethical form of identity
 and that the form of identity in the nation is seen as exclusionary

in the poem “epilogue” by Grace Nicholas (Grace Nichols, intro and poems, 882-885)
 we see a description of the way Migration and movement can be understood both as
something important, something valuable, and as something sad, as loss,
in line 1:
o here we see the emphasis on migration, (1)
o this movement produces a loss, a loss of a language (2
 o (linking back to the 1 theme language and english)
o and the fact that in the new place a new language has developed (4)
 so, crossing an ocean mean losing a language
o but it also means having a new one
 so in the poem:
o we se migration as being both a cause of loss and also a cause for something new
o and this uncertainty is characteristic of the post-colonial treatment of migration
 where it is seen as something both difficult and something that brings new
experiences, new languages into the world.

Reading and sources:

Greenblatt, Stephen. “Grace Nichols, intro and poems”, in Norton English, vol F.10th, 2018. Pp.
882-885