An Unknown Girl by Moniza Alvi - English Lit A/L - Poetry 4


 An Unknown Girl By Moniza Alvi

 

 In the evening bazaar

Studded with neon

An unknown girl

Is hennaing my hand

She squeezes a wet brown line

Form a nozzle

She is icing my hand,

Which she steadies with her

On her satin peach knee.

In the evening bazaar

For a few rupees

An unknown girl is hennaing my hand

As a little air catches

My shadow stitched kameez

A peacock spreads its lines

Across my palm.

Colours leave the street

Float up in balloons.

Dummies in shop-fronts

Tilt and stare

With their western perms.

Banners for Miss India 1993

For curtain cloth

And sofa cloth

Canopy me.

I have new brown veins.

In the evening bazaar

Very deftly

An unknown girl

is hennaing my hand

I am clinging

To these firm peacock lines

Like people who cling

to sides of a train.

Now the furious streets

Are hushed.

I’ll scrape off

The dry brown lines

Before I sleep,

Reveal soft as a snail trail

The amber bird beneath.

It will fade in a week.

When India appears and reappears

I’ll lean across a country

With my hands outstretched

Longing for the unknown girl

In the neon bazaar.


Themes:

1.     Natural identity and the effects of its loss.

2.     The beauty and the vibrancy of Indian Culture, and the effects of the imposition of western culture has had on it.

3.     The personal feelings of being and stranger to its culture.  

Techniques: 

1.     Free verse language

2.     Metaphor

3.     Simile

4.     First person narration

5.     Refrain

6.     Symbol

7.     Imagery

8.     Westernization of India – Superficial lightning may reveal her inner-self

9.     Eastern identity

10.  Repetition

11.  Ironic consideration the value of the experience

12.  Personification – sense of unease

13.  Negative connotation

14.  Contrast of artificial western influence to traditional henna

15.  Setting – reflects poverty, urbanization

16.  Run-on-lines

17.  Tone - Anxious

 Refer to more details about the poetic techniques using the link bellow.

 References:

 AL resource book provided by NIE, www.poemanalysis.com, www.owlcation.com

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