Presents from my Aunts

Question 1

context

Answer 1

-moved from Pakistan as a child
-mother from England, father from Pakistan
-Bangladesh war 1971 (‘fractured land’)
-cultural identity

Question 2

form

Answer 2

free verse
fragmented lines
varied stanza and line length

Question 3

They sent me a shalwar kameez
peacock blue,
and another
glistening like an orange split open

Answer 3

-active voice - feels powerless
-vivid colour imagery
-simile
-violent verb - poem about someone feeling torn and split
-fragmented lines - idea of being split

Question 4

I tried each satin-silken top -
was alien in the sitting room

Answer 4

-sibilance - like the sound that satin and silk make; luxury items suggesting wealth and value
-metaphor
-juxtaposition of sitting in a place of familiarity, but feeling alien

Question 5

My costume clung to me
and I was aflame

Answer 5

-metaphor - putting on an act, feels like an imposter
-plosive alliteration - negativity
-metaphorical - doesn’t want to be part of it and doesn’t feel strong enough to ‘rise up’ from the fire

Question 6

consider the cruelty

Answer 6

doesn’t belong, like the lamp.
cruel for a camel, so also cruel to make her wear those clothes

Question 7

glimpse

Answer 7

can’t even bare to see herself —> struggling to see herself in the dress both metaphorically and literally

Question 8

fractured land, throbbing

Answer 8

-metaphor - like a wound or infected
-fractured/divided land could represent the divisions within herself