1. The Emigrée By Carol Rumens
Emigrants are people who have left the country of their birth to settle elsewhere in the world. The spelling of the word Rumens chooses - émigrée - is a feminine form and suggests the speaker of the poem is a woman.
The Emigrée
By Carol Rumens

2. Before and after

3. Context of poet Born in 1944. Lived in Belfast and Wales.
Travelled widely in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Often writes about foreign cultures, customs and language.
Poetry full of imagery and symbolism.
Long sentences: complex syntax (sentence structure).
From ‘Thinking of Skins’ collection about political consciousness.

4. Translation
Stanza 1: There was once a country that I left as a child, I remember it well, but I never saw it in troubled times, so whatever I hear about it, I cannot think of it as anything other than positive. There may be a war there, but I can’t think of it negatively. Stanza 2: The streets and slopes of the city still remain in my memory after all this time. I notice differences between that place and the place I’m in now and I still have/use the childish vocabulary to describe it, even though that language is now banned there. Stanza 3: (Gets ambiguous here, but don’t worry!) I don’t have a passport and can’t go back, but my memories remain with me. I can read about it in the newspaper(?), but I still remember it positively. NB: The place/country is never named. She wants the poem to be as relevant as possible to as many people as possible i.e. it applies to anyone who has had to leave their country.

5. Power and conflict poem
The power of place: despite leaving a dangerous place, the speaker passionately loves it.
Conflicting emotions between people and place: has to leave because of tyrants.
Lots of contrast of positive and negative used to show the power of place.
Conflict between memory and reality – the place wins: final positive imagery of sunlight.

6. Language
Positive imagery contrasts with chaotic structure. (sunlight throughout but repeated and also at end means it ends on a positive note) She loves this place. Passion overpowers negativity.
Negative imagery: find examples.
Repetition of ‘they’ in final stanza – sounds threatening/dangerous.
Juxtaposition: branded by sunlight: Juxtaposition is a literary technique in which two or more ideas, places, characters and their actions are placed side by side in a narrative or a poem for the purpose of developing comparisons and contrasts.
A paperweight holds things down – imagery of stability
Personification: the city is sick, it comes to her, it lies down, it takes her dancing, she brushes its hair (sounds like a lover). Emphasises her love for this place and its power over her.
Metaphors throughout: find examples
Extended metaphor: the city – a symbol of lost childhood
Similes: find examples

7. Structure
Free verse
Enjambment
Caesura, especially in final stanza (creates chaos and powerlessness)
All combine to reflect chaos of place she loves (now a war zone).
BUT each stanza regular length (8/9 lines) speaker imposing order, refusing to bow to power.
The longer stanza shows her reluctance to leave.

8. Form
The poem presents itself as a first-person account of an émigrée’s relationship with her homeland.
The lack of specific details about the émigrée’s homeland implies that the poem may not be in any sense directly autobiographical.
The speaker of the poem may be fictional and the city itself imaginary.

9. Compares with Kamikaze – why? similarities Differences
Both are about outcasts - a shunned father in Kamikaze and an exile in The Émigrée.
Both present details of relationships - one between a person and their homeland, and the other between a father and his family.
Both use unrhymed stanzas.
Neither has a strong rhythmic pattern.
Both use an everyday, conversational style of speech.
Both mention powerful sense impressions of colour: light and dark, ‘green-blue translucent’ and ‘dark shoals’ (Garland); ‘sunlight-clear’, ‘every coloured molecule’, ‘my shadow falls as evidence’ (Rumens). Both poems mention taste, ‘salt-sodden’ (Garland), ‘tastes of sunlight (Rumens).
Although Rumens makes greater use of simile and metaphor in her poem, both poets use figurative language to help the reader picture the scenes being described.
Kamikaze is told using third-person narrative, The Émigrée uses the first person (although the speaker may be fictional and not Rumens herself.)
Although it’s not clearly regular, Rumens does use an irregular pattern of around 5 stresses in each line.
Garland makes sparing use of metaphor and simile (‘like bunting’ and ‘tuna, the dark prince’). Rumens makes much greater use of metaphor (‘the bright filled paperweight’, ‘[a city] sick with tyrants’, ‘branded … by sunlight’, ‘time rolls its tanks’. Rumens makes use of simile too, ‘the frontiers rise between us, close like waves’, ‘like a hollow doll’, ‘docile as paper’.