Professional Documents
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English: Poems from Different Cultures and Traditions Cluster 2
Grace Nichols was born and educated in Guyana in the West Indies.
She came to Britain in 1977.
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13 The fourth stanza (lines 19–22) describes lightning – but the
speaker is asking about its meaning. Changing from light to dark
quickly might remind you of where the speaker actually is. How?
English: Poems from Different Cultures and Traditions Cluster 2
Final thoughts
The hurricane from the tropics lets her know that ’the earth is the
earth is the earth’ (line 36). The poem has mentioned old places
and new places; old tongues; the past and the present; old homes
and new homes and how somebody moving from one place to
another feels. What does the last line of the poem say about all of
this? How does the poet underline the importance of this, by the
way the last line is written?
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Comparisons
You might compare this poem with:
• Love After Love / Presents from my Aunts . . . (identity)
Questions
Foundation Tier
Compare the ways in which the poets present people in Night of the
Scorpion and one other poem of your choice from this selection.
Write about:
• what the different people are like
• what the poets think about them
• how the language brings out what the people are like
• how the language shows what the poets think about the people
• which poem you prefer and why.
Higher Tier
Compare Hurricane Hits England with one other poem, showing
how poets reveal their ideas and feelings about the particular
cultures they are writing about.
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