Poetry annotation example
Red text - Annotation
The Emigree ← leaving their home
There once was a country… I left it as a child
but my memory of it is sunlight-clear ← Past tense / reminiscing
for it seems I never saw it in that November
which, I am told, comes to the mildest city.
The worst news I receive of it cannot break
my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.
It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants ← Repetition & Personification
but I am branded by an impression of sunlight. ← Repetition (emphesis on the imagery of
sunlight)
The white streets if that city, the graceful slopes
glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks ← Juxtaposition between the ‘white streets’ &
‘time rolls with tanks’
and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves.
That child’s vocabulary I carried here ← Lived there as a child. The past tense verb suggests that they’re reminiscing again.
like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.
Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it.
It may now be a lie, banned by the state
but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight. ← Repetition (tells reader that the sunlight represents happiness)
I have no passport, there’s no way back at all ← Capitalisation of each letter in the title is suggestive of the
but my city comes to me in its own white plane. significance of the home of the speaker
It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; ← Repetition of personal pronouns show how
personal this experience is
I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.
My city takes me dancing through the city ←”my” possessive pronoun - wants to protect their home
of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me. - intimate
They accuse me og bring dark in their free city.
My city hides behind me. They mutter death,
and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.
Carol Rumens
Red text - Annotation
The Emigree ← leaving their home
There once was a country… I left it as a child
but my memory of it is sunlight-clear ← Past tense / reminiscing
for it seems I never saw it in that November
which, I am told, comes to the mildest city.
The worst news I receive of it cannot break
my original view, the bright, filled paperweight.
It may be at war, it may be sick with tyrants ← Repetition & Personification
but I am branded by an impression of sunlight. ← Repetition (emphesis on the imagery of
sunlight)
The white streets if that city, the graceful slopes
glow even clearer as time rolls its tanks ← Juxtaposition between the ‘white streets’ &
‘time rolls with tanks’
and the frontiers rise between us, close like waves.
That child’s vocabulary I carried here ← Lived there as a child. The past tense verb suggests that they’re reminiscing again.
like a hollow doll, opens and spills a grammar.
Soon I shall have every coloured molecule of it.
It may now be a lie, banned by the state
but I can’t get it off my tongue. It tastes of sunlight. ← Repetition (tells reader that the sunlight represents happiness)
I have no passport, there’s no way back at all ← Capitalisation of each letter in the title is suggestive of the
but my city comes to me in its own white plane. significance of the home of the speaker
It lies down in front of me, docile as paper; ← Repetition of personal pronouns show how
personal this experience is
I comb its hair and love its shining eyes.
My city takes me dancing through the city ←”my” possessive pronoun - wants to protect their home
of walls. They accuse me of absence, they circle me. - intimate
They accuse me og bring dark in their free city.
My city hides behind me. They mutter death,
and my shadow falls as evidence of sunlight.
Carol Rumens
