Other Cultures Essay

Introduction

The essay I am going to write about involves two poems which will be annotated and compared after I have given a description of both. The poems I have chosen are “Blessing” by Imtiaz Dharker and “Half-Caste” by John Agard. The poem “Blessing” is about the importance of water in a small town in India. In this poem the people of the town fall across an unexpected supply of water which brings them great joy which they see as a blessing. “Half-Caste” is about a foreign man explaining his point about the term half-caste. He sees it as an insult, as if he is lower than the people who call him this. I chose “Blessing” because I find it interesting how much water means to these people and the shortage of it in their town. I chose “Half-Caste” because I think that he has a very good case about the term half-caste. The poem I have chosen to write about first will be “Blessing”.

Blessing

“The skin cracks like a pod. There is never enough water“
This opening line gives us a lot of knowledge to what the situation in the town is. “There is never enough water”. This sounds as if the village has never got water to drink or even wash with, but they have had to make do with what they had.
    In the next part of the poem she concentrates on just one drop of water. “Imagine the drip of it the small splash”. This shows us how we take water for granted, leaving the tap run while we brush our teeth for example, whilst these people treasure on small drop. The water is “Blessed”.
    The next part of the poem is the centre of attention as it focuses on the water-pipe bursting. The people see this as a “rush of fortune”. It’s described as a gift from above. As the water flows out of the pipe, “it shines like silver”. Fortune and silver are words that could be associated with wealth. Water is like wealth to these people.
    A gathering has developed by the pipe; “A roar of tongues” describes the need and desire to collect this water....