Where I Come From

Question 1

Summary

Answer 1

poet meeting all sorts of different people in her life. She notes their background and the wonderful adventures that they have about they themselves travelling the world. She then contrasts it to the world that she grew up in before she met these people. She, living in a small rural area with little need for money and education, finds her life very different from those in the urban world.

Question 2

Structure

Answer 2

• Free-style writing (free verse, no rhymes) => poet does not enjoy being restricted

Question 3

Themes

Answer 3

• Nature/Rural vs Urban areas

- Organisation

Question 4

Significant literary techniques

Answer 4

• Repetition on the word smell:
  + The smell is the strongest memory sense => easier to create a strong empathy link between the reader and the poet => point out the vast difference between the urban and rural area.

Question 5

Word analysis (Stanza 1)

Answer 5

• “People are made of places” => affected by birthplace and character reflects the area that they grow up in => implies the uniqueness that lies in between every individuals.
• “They carry” => weight, significance of places and their impact on identity
• “jungles or mountains” => nature, suggests not found together in 1 place => diversity
• “tropic grace” = delicate beauty
• “different drops of them” => here cities include variety. Drops = small particles, fragments that form the whole
• “smell of smog” => pollution from factories, vehicles => suffocation
• “almost-not-smell” => pollution is overpowering nature
• “nature tidily plotted” => organisation, describe how urbanisation
  is starting to make everything uniform
• “art also plotted with a guidebook” => Guidebook links to structure, order and lack of creativity. Art is also plotted suggests nature and difference is not appreciated or killed.

Question 6

Word analysis (stanza 2)

Answer 6

• Author’s POV
• “acres of pine woods”abundant => emphasize the significance of nature
• “blueberry batches in burned-out bush” => batches = abundant, blueberry a delicious fruit, smells and tastes sweet => beauty of nature. “burned-out bush” => blueberries can still grow => suggests the strength of nature. At the end, nature has the power to endure anything
• “wooden farmhouses” => The beauty of simplicity and nature is appeared through the everyday life. People appreciate it.
• “chickens circle about” => no restriction/organisation > “aimlessly”
• “battered schoolhouse” => education is not as important in rural areas
• “ice and breaking of ice” => life and death, suggests nothing lasts forever
• Last stanza => door represents a new alternative to the ‘line of thought’ that she is about to go through => addressing urbanisation and how urban sprawl will eventually catch up with its rural counterpart => change is coming => fields of snow represent the fact that it is something that is tough and it is something that you can’t overcome quickly => but have to grow through it to get to spring