1. Nothing’s Changed Culture Surface Meaning Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
South Africa:
• Once ruled by the law of apartheid, which meant black people had fewer rights, less wealth and were prevented from going to certain places compared to white people
Surface Meaning
The poet / voice writes about a walk / journey to a restaurant and working men’s café explaining how each are very different
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas / Attitudes:
• Apartheid is / was wrong
• Things were supposed to changed
• In reality, although the political situation is resolved, some attitudes to racism remain the same
Feelings:
• Anger
• Frustration
• Feeling of being an “outsider”
• Discriminated against
Language
Imagery
Simile = “flaring like a flag”
Metaphor = “Hands burn … to shiver down the glass”
Personification:
• “amiable weeds”
• “it squats” = the restaurant
• “Brash with glass” = the restaurant
• “bearded seeds”
Sound Patterns
Assonance:
• “Brash … glass … flag”
• “heels … seeds … weeds”
Alliteration:
• “click … cuff … can … crunch” = harsh “k” sounds
Onomatopoeia:
• “click … crunch”
Pun:
• “whites only inn” = could read whites only in
O Inn = welcoming, hostel / hotel
O In = included, allowed to enter
Neither is true for black citizens
• “glass”:
O glass ceiling (transparent barrier that prevents someone from going further or higher in life)
O glass shatter easily just like broken promises and the power of lies
• “I press my nose / to the clear panes” = could read to the clear pains
Semantic fields:
• Exclusion = “guard”, “gatepost”, “whites only inn”
• Luxury = “glass”, “linen”, “rose”, “ice white”, “haute cuisine”, “up-market”
• Squalid = “plastic tables”, “bunny chows”, “wipe your fingers on your jeans”, “pit a little on the floor”
• Anger = “burning”, “bomb”, “stone”, “flaring like a flag”
Structure
6 stanzas of 8 lines each
1st stanza = Familiar, friendly – like someone returning to their childhood town for the first time in many years
2nd stanza (lines 11-16) = Sense of anger travels from the outside of his body to the inside – from his feet, to his hands, to his skin, to his bones, to his lungs, to his “inward turning” eyes
Stanza 2 onwards = Hostility builds up – Everything he sees reminds him of when apartheid was enforced when he was a boy
Line 45 to end = Hostility turns to fury
Stanza 4 is broken up into 2:
2 lines then 6 lines
The 2 line part of the stanza (lines 25 & 26) highlights the line “No sign says it is: / but we know where we belong.” This message comes in the middle of the poem and is highlighted as it breaks up the stanza pattern
Contrasts:
• Restaurant (whites) vs. working men’s café (blacks)
• Crushed ice white glass”, “linen”, “single rose” vs. “plastic tables”, “wipe your fingers on your jeans”, “spit a little on the floor”
• “Haute cuisine” vs. “bunny chows”
• “anger of eyes” vs. “amiable weeds”
• “locally grown” (from that land, like the black people) vs. “Port Jackson trees” (imported, like the white people)
“Nothing’s Changed” – title and last line = Circular, no end to the problems (futility, exasperation, anger)

2. Two Scavengers Culture Surface Meaning Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
America:
• Rich, powerful Western nation
• Many rich people but also growing “underclass” of poverty stricken people
Surface Meaning
While waiting at the traffic lights, two bin men on the back of a bin wagon look across at the two passengers of an expensive car.
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• Great disparity of wealth and opportunity in the USA
• People in the same city are separated by social circumstances
• Strangers brought together in one brief moment
• Always look up to wealthy powerful people, but scavengers physically look down at them
Attitudes:
• Garbagemen are real, beautiful people are distant and fake
• Is such a democratic society fair if there is such disparity?
• We become our jobs
Feelings:
• Curiosity
• Envy
• Snobbery
• Social division
• Know your place
• Hope
• Possibility
• Beauty of human society in one brief moment
Language
Imagery - Simile:
• “like some / gargoyle Quasimodo”
• “as if they were watching some / odorless TV ad”
Metaphor:
• “And both scavengers gazing down / as from a great distance” – bin men = vultures
• “across the small gulf / in the high seas / of this / democracy” – space between them is like a sea
Personification:
• “And the very red light for an instant holding all four close together”
Sound Patterns
Alliteration = “cool couple”
Rhyme = “seas … democracy”
Pun:
• “scavengers” = bin men
vultures
feed off rich people’s waste and taxes
• “small gulf” = space between the cars
space between their lives or the Sea
Repetition:
• “elegant” x 2
• “light” x 3
• “in which everything is always possible” and “as if anything at all were possible”
Semantic fields:
• Rich = “elegant open Mercedes”
“elegant couple in it”
“hip three-piece linen suit”
“sunglasses”
“casually coifed”
“architect’s office”
“odorless TV ad”
• Cheap = “hanging on”
“plastic blazers”
“scavengers”
“grungy”
“iron hair”
• Hair = “shoulder length blond hair”
“grey iron hair”
“long hair”
• Watching = “looking down” x 2 “gazing down”
Pronouns = “they” – the bin men
Structure
4 stanzas (15 lines, 10 lines, 5 lines, 7 lines)
1st stanza = Sets the scene and describes beautiful people
2nd stanza = Garbagemen
3rd stanza = Garbagemen watching
4th stanza = Power of democratic red light to bring people together
Free verse (no structured rhyme or rhythm)
No punctuation except hyphens, apostrophes of possession and acronym full stops (e.g. a.m.)
Instead of , or ; or : poet writes on another line and offsets it
Capital at start indicates new sentence / line
No punctuation =
• Free flowing like stream of consciousness
• Free approach to reading and performing
“&” not “and”
Contrasts:
• Title = “Two Scavengers” vs. “Two Beautiful People”
• “bright yellow garbage truck” vs. “elegant open Mercedes”
• “two garbagemen” vs. “elegant couple”
• “red plastic blazers” vs. “hip three-piece linen suit”
• “shoulder-length blond hair” vs. “grey iron hair”
• “grungy from their route” vs. “odorless TV ad”

3. Blessing Culture Surface Meaning Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings Language
India:
• importance of religion (“a kindly god”, “the blessing”)
• Drought
Surface Meaning
In a village during a drought, a water pipe bursts and the people rush to collect it, play in it and celebrate the value of water in such times
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• In a society where water is sometimes scarce it becomes the most precious commodity (water = “silver”)
• During a drought a sudden supply of water is cause for major celebration
Attitudes:
• There is no sense of recrimination about the lack of water, only joy when it finally arrives
• Self-preservation (“every man woman child … butts in”)
Feelings:
• Hope / desperation (“Imagine the drip of it”)
• Joy / excitement (“roar of tongues”, “naked children / screaming in the liquid sun”)
• Relief (“as the blessing sings / over their small bones”)
Language
Alliteration:
• “small splash” (“s” sound like the splash of water)
• “polished to perfection”
Semantic fields:
• Water = “water”
“drip”
“splash”
“rush of fortune”
“silver”
“flow”
“liquid sun” (until the pipe bursts, the “liquid sun” is the closest thing to water but now everything, even the sun, has the joy of water about it)
“the blessing”
Pronouns = “it” (line 3) = water
Structure
4 stanzas of unequal length:
• 1st stanza = The effect of no water
• 2nd stanza = The excitement and hope of possibility
• 3rd stanza = The effect of a burst pipe (flowing water) on the people of the village
• 4th stanza = The joy and aftermath of abundant water
Regular use of punctuation
No regular pattern of syllables per line
Third person omniscient narrator – allows reader to appreciate the wider effect of a drought
Contrasts:
• “The skin cracks like a pod” vs. “their highlights polished to perfection”
• “small splash” vs. “silver crashes to the ground”

4. Night of the Scorpion Culture Surface Meaning
India:
• A densely populated country with a large proportion living in relative poverty
• Religion stills forms an essential aspect of society
Surface Meaning
A child watches as their mother, having been stung by a scorpion, struggles against the poison as the rest of the village try to save her
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• A strong belief in the battle between good and evil
Attitudes:
• Faith in the power of religion and fate
Feelings:
• The “I” voice of the child mentions no fear or concern for the mother but remains emotionally detached as if recounting a distant memory with a known ending
Language
Imagery
Simile = “The peasants came like swarms of flies”
Metaphor = “buzzed the name of God” (the peasants sound like flies as well)
Personification:
• “lanterns / throwing giant scorpion shadows”
• “may he sit still, they said” (the scorpion poisoning maliciously)
• “it lost its sting” (the poison and the scorpion)
Sound Patterns
Alliteration:
• “parting with his poison”
• “he risked the rain again”
• “movement … made … moved … Mother’s” (lines 16-17)
• “poison purify”
• “poured … paraffin”
Repetition:
• “May … , they said” x 5 (like an incantation)
• “More” x 4 in lines 32-33
• “I watched” x 2 in lines 41-42
• “God” x 2
Semantic fields:
• Religion = “name of God”
“sins of your previous birth”
“misfortunes of your next birth” (reincarnation)
“Thank God”
• Evil = “diabolic tail”
“the Evil One”
“his poison”
“the sum of evil / balanced in this unreal world”
• Ritual = “candles … lanterns”
“purify your flesh”
“they sat around / on the floor with my mother in the centre”
“every curse and blessing”
“I watched the holy man perform his rites”
Pronouns = “I” – voice of the poem, the child
“He” – scorpion and father
“your” – 2nd person reference to the mother
“they” – the peasants / villagers
Structure
6 stanzas of 8 lines each
1st stanza = Familiar, friendly – like someone returning to their childhood town for the first time in many years
2nd stanza (lines 11-16) = Sense of anger travels from the outside of his body to the inside – from his feet, to his hands, to his skin, to his bones, to his lungs, to his “inward turning” eyes
Stanza 2 onwards = Hostility builds up – Everything he sees reminds him of when apartheid was enforced when he was a boy
Line 45 to end = Hostility turns to fury
Stanza 4 is broken up into 2:
2 lines then 6 lines
The 2 line part of the stanza (lines 25 & 26) highlights the line “No sign says it is: / but we know where we belong.” This message comes in the middle of the poem and is highlighted as it breaks up the stanza pattern
Contrasts:
• Restaurant (whites) vs. working men’s café (blacks)
• Crushed ice white glass”, “linen”, “single rose” vs. “plastic tables”, “wipe your fingers on your jeans”, “spit a little on the floor”
• “Haute cuisine” vs. “bunny chows”
• “anger of eyes” vs. “amiable weeds”
• “locally grown” (from that land, like the black people) vs. “Port Jackson trees” (imported, like the white people)
“Nothing’s Changed” – title and last line = Circular, no end to the problems (futility, exasperation, anger)

5. Vultures Culture Surface Meaning Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings Language
Nigeria:
• African country rich with wildlife
• Has suffered many civil wars and conflicts
Surface Meaning
The love between two vultures that feed on the dead together is compared to the love a World War 2 concentration camp Commandant has for his child after a day of murdering people
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• Strange mix / link between love & death
• Hypocrisy / enigma of creature capable of evil still being capable of love
• Hypocrisy of those who kill as a job and go home like a normal family person
• Whether it is good that love comes even to the evil or it is bad because it perpetuates the evil
Attitudes:
• Disbelief and mystery at this hypocrisy
• Anger and resentment at hypocrisy
• Fickle / untrue reality of love
Feelings:
• Anger
• Resentment
• Disbelief
• Mystery
• Wonder
Language
Imagery
Metaphor:
• “a pebble / on a stem rooted in / a dump of gross / feathers” = the vulture
• “charnel-house” – graveyard = the world (full of death) where the vultures live
• “ogre” = evil man, Commandant
• “glow-worm tenderness”
• “icy caverns of a cruel heart”
Personification:
• “despondent dawn”
• “broken bone of a dead tree”
• “love in other ways so particular”
Sound Patterns
Assonance = “swollen corpse in a water-logged trench”
Alliteration:
• “drizzle of one despondent dawn”
• “broken bone”
Semantic fields:
• Love = “his mate”
“inclined affectionately”
“love”
“coil up there”
“tender offspring”
“Daddy’s return”
“tiny glow-worm tenderness”
“kindred love”
Structure
4 stanzas – irregular length (last 2 are similar in structure suggesting link and importance)
1st stanza = Vultures – love and togetherness in the midst of death around them
2nd stanza = Enigma of love in face of death and destruction
3rd stanza = Hypocrisy of murdering concentration camp leader who can go home to his loving family as if it was a normal job
4th stanza = Dichotomy of love even for evil people = either good that it is still possible or bad as it perpetuates the evil as they are not punished by having love taken away from them
Limited punctuation allows poem to flow unhindered so that it sounds like a rant or something needing to be expressed passionately
No regular syllable count / rhyme
Third person omniscient narrator
Contrasts:
• vultures & Commandant
• “fumes of human roast” vs. “tender offspring”
• “grants even an ogre a tiny glow-worm tenderness” vs. “the perpetuity of evil”

6. Limbo Culture Surface Meaning Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings Language
West Indies:
• Colonised by European countries in the 18th century
• Slaves brought from Africa by these European countries to work in the sugar cane fields and other crops
Surface Meaning
During a customary limbo dance the dancer is reminded of the history of Afro-Caribbeans as slaves
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• Although the limbo dance is now thought of as a spectacle for tourists, its history comes from the exercises slaves used to do to keep themselves fit on the slave ships
Attitudes:
•If the limbo stick represents the shackles of slavery or life, then the dance is an act of liberation and a way to be free of these ties (figuratively and literally) (“up up up / and the music is saving me”)
Feelings:
• Oppression
• Suffocation and being overwhelmed (“the water surrounding me”)
• There is no real sense of anger at slavery as you might expect but rather the sense of it, like the limbo stick, is an obstacle that can be overcome
• Release / Joy (“and the drummers are praising me”, “and the dumb gods are raising me”, “and the music is saving me”)
Language
Imagery
Simile = “limbo like me” – either join me in this dance or I am in limbo
Metaphor:
• “And limbo stick is the silence in front of me”
• “long dark deck is the silence in front of me”
• “stick is the whip / and the dark deck is slavery”
Personification:
• “and the dark still steady”
• “long dark deck and the silence is over me”
• “and the water is hiding”
• “and the music is saving me”
Sound Patterns
Assonance:
• “stick hit” (harsh “i” sound like something being struck)
• “stick is the whip” (as above)
• “stick knock” (“ck” sound again like something being struck)
Alliteration:
• “limbo limbo like me” (musical)
• “dark deck”
Rhyme:
• Loose rhyme pattern where most lines end with “me” or:
Lines = “ready” and “steady”
Lines = “slavery” and “slavery”
Onomatopoeia = “knock”
Many other sound related words that are almost like onomatopoeia but not precisely such as “stick”, “hit” and “whip”
Pun:
“Limbo” =
• A dance from the Caribbean
• Place between heaven and hell
• The place outside of heaven and hell where babies who have not been christened go if they die
“Stick” =
• The limbo beam which the dancer has to go beneath as well as
• The pole the slaves were chained to as they rowed the slave ships
• The stick that the slaves were beaten with
Repetition:
• “Limbo” x 19 (including title)
• “stick” x 6
•“me” x 18
• “dark” x 8
Structure
24 stanzas of varying length
No punctuation except final full stop at the end
Loose structure and rhythm involving single lines or couplets followed by “chorus” of “limbo limbo like me” except from lines 32 to the end where the “chorus” is replaced three times by the actions of the dancer (“down down down”)
Heavy beat to first line of some the couplets by using monosyllabic words without conjunctions (“stick hit sound”) followed by the more flowing next line that does use conjunctions (“and the ship like it ready”)
The final four lines break from the loose rhythm of the poem by using words that do not have a forceful end to the syllable (“hot / slow / step”) with the final line breaking the pattern altogether by not ending in “me”

7. Island Man Culture Surface Meaning Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings Language
Guyana:
• Country on the north coast of South America
• One of the poorest nations in the world
• Gained independence from Britain in 1966
Surface Meaning
A man who used to live on a Caribbean island still dreams of this place even now when he lives in London
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• Comparing the simple beautiful way of life on a Caribbean island to the noise and rush of a modern city
• When far away from home some people will over idealise it
• Never forget where you come from
Attitudes:
• Island man does not seem to feel at home in London therefore there is a sense of being out of place and not belonging
• The opportunities of London are far removed from the beauties of the Caribbean
Feelings:
• Homesick
• Idealising the past / previous home
• Regret
• Dull repetitive nature of present working life
Language
Imagery
Metaphor = “sands / of a grey metallic soar” (London as an unpleasant beach)
Personification:
• “the sun surfacing defiantly”
• “to dull North Circular roar”
Sound Patterns
Alliteration:
• “sun surfacing”
• Stanza 3 = “Sands”, “soar”, “surge” (like the sounds of the sea)
Rhyme = Stanza 3 – “soar” and “roar”
Pun = “his crumpled pillow waves”:
the crumples on his pillow are in wave shapes
the waves of the sea he still hears
Repetition:
• “groggily groggily”
• “muffling muffling”
Semantic fields:
• Island = “blue surf”
“wild seabirds”
“fishermen”
“small emerald island”
• London = “grey metallic soar”
“surge of wheels”
“dull North Circular roar”
• Dreaming = “wakes up”
“in his head”
“groggily groggily”
“crumpled pillow”
Pronouns = “his” - Island Man
Structure
5 stanzas (last stanza is just one line for emphasis) not including the dedication at the beginning, which adds a sense of reality to the island man character
No punctuation (except for brackets around the dedication)
First 2 stanzas of the poem deal with the dreams or memories that the island man has of his home in the Caribbean and the idealised way he views it
Final 3 stanzas deal with his new reality of London, which appears inferior in contrast
No regular rhythm or syllable count – suggests disorientation or being out of place (in his subconscious mind, island man doesn’t feel at home in London)
Staggered placing of key lines (“groggily groggily” and “to surge of wheels”) emphasises them as well as suggesting displacement for the island man as well
Capitals used only for:
• “Morning” – start of poem
• “Comes back to sands” – start of 3rd stanza and description of London (therefore a return to reality / present)
• “North Circular” – name of a road in London
• “Another London day” – capitalising “Another” suggests the start of (of the day / of a new sentence) as well as emphasising the importance of this word in terms of the repetitive nature of his current life
Poem begins with “Morning” and ends with “day” – hope and possibility at the start of each morning, which is reduced to “dull” reality when he gets out of bed each day
Contrasts:
• “sound of blue surf” vs. “dull North Circular roar”
• “steady breaking and wombing” (of the sea) vs. “surge of wheels”

8. What Were They Like? Culture Surface Meaning
Vietnam:
• South East Asian country ravaged by war in the 1960’s and 70’s with America
• Poor, predominately agriculture based economy
America:
• Rich, powerful Western nation
• Thought of as peace-keepers in world politics by intervening where they feel it is appropriate
Surface Meaning
A question and answer session about the impact of the Vietnam War on the people of Vietnam
Ideas, Attitudes, Feelings
Ideas:
• Everything has changed for the Vietnamese people after the war (beauty and peace turned to sadness, grief and destruction)
Attitudes:
• The peaceful simple lives of the Vietnamese people was shattered by the horror of war that the Americans brought with them
• Anti-war, pro peace
• Anti-American (despite poet being American) and pro-Vietnamese
Feelings:
• No direct anger or recrimination towards Americans, but sense of sorrow and loss due to the horror of war and its impact
• Sadness
• Loss
• “Matter of fact” style
• Contempt for war
Language
Imagery
Simile:
•“their speech which was like a song”
• “their singing resembled the flight of moths in moonlight”
Metaphor:
• “their light hearts turned to stone”
Semantic fields:
• Sadness = “their light hearts turned to stone”
“after the children were killed / there were no more buds)”
“laughter is bitter to the burned mouth”
“When bombs smashed those mirrors there was time only to scream”
“It is silent now”
• Horror = “after the children were killed”
“burned mouth”
“All the bones were charred”
Pronouns = “they” – the people of Vietnam
Structure
2 stanzas
1st stanza = questions
2nd stanza = answers
Can be read normally from line 1 to the end or by following the numbers to link each questions with its relevant answer
Regular use of punctuation except line 15 which ends with a bracket (“)”)
No regular syllable count per line or rhyme
Rhythm is that of regular speech
Sounds like conversation between everyday person (American) and a polite anti-war protestor (“Sir …”)
Contrasts:
• Question & answer
• Before & after the war