1. To develop our poetry analysis skills
Lesson objective:
To develop our poetry analysis skills
To explore the main themes and ideas as presented by Rumens within the poem.
‘The Emigrée’
by Carol Rumens
To be able to comment on structural features and poetic devices in a poem
To be able to respond creatively to a poem through analysis paragraphs
To identify the meaning of a poem through close language analysis
LO: To be able to effectively respond to a poetry exam question

2. Getting started...
1. Note down any words or phrases that are repeated within the poem. Do you notice anything interesting about these words/phrases? 2. What is an ‘emigrée’? 3. Highlight any words or phrases that are connected to the idea of being forced to leave somewhere. 4. What do the opening words ‘there once was a country’ suggest about what to expect from the poem?
An émigré is a person who has "migrated out", often with a connotation of political or social self-exile. The word is the past participle of the French émigrer 'to emigrate'.
To be able to comment on structural features and poetic devices in a poem
To be able to respond creatively to a poem through analysis paragraphs
To identify the meaning of a poem through close language analysis
LO: To be able to effectively respond to a poetry exam question

3. Contextual Information
Carol Rumens is a British poet who has travelled extensively in Eastern Europe and Russia. Often, Rumens uses these experiences within her poems. ‘The Emigrée’ was first published in Rumen’s collection ‘Thinking of Skins: New and Selected Poems’ in 1993.
To be able to comment on structural features and poetic devices in a poem
To be able to respond creatively to a poem through analysis paragraphs
To identify the meaning of a poem through close language analysis
LO: To be able to effectively respond to a poetry exam question

4. Evidence to support this inference
Working with the poem
The poem’s narrator
What do we learn about the poem’s narrator?
Make a list of five positive and five negative words from the poem.
Identify two sets of contrasting images and ideas in the poem that are related to:
Light – especially sunlight
Restriction – lack of freedom and oppression
What does the use of these contrasts suggest to you about the ideas that the poem explores?
What we know
What is suggested
Evidence to support this inference
Narrator left their home country as a child.
The country may no longer be as it is remembered.
‘The worst news I receive of it cannot break / my original view, the bright, filled paperweight’.
To be able to comment on structural features and poetic devices in a poem
To be able to respond creatively to a poem through analysis paragraphs
To identify the meaning of a poem through close language analysis
LO: To be able to effectively respond to a poetry exam question

5. The detail
The ‘exploring the detail’ sheet should help you form a close understanding of the main ideas within the poem.
The poem takes the literal meaning of ‘emigrée’ and explores how it can also be used to represent other kinds of isolation or forced absence. This is called an extended metaphor.
Do you think any other kinds of absence may be implied within the poem? Explain your reasons using textual references.
To be able to comment on structural features and poetic devices in a poem
To be able to respond creatively to a poem through analysis paragraphs
To identify the meaning of a poem through close language analysis
LO: To be able to effectively respond to a poetry exam question

6. To summarise… Key vocabulary:
Key themes:
How an émigrée holds onto memories.
Ideas about freedom and banishment.
The power of state oppression.
Enforced departures.
Key vocabulary:
Emigrée: An émigrée is a person who has ‘migrated out’, often with a connotation of political or social self-exile.
Key features:
Formal structure of three eight-line verses.
Imagery relating to light, contrasted with images of darkness and oppression.
The idea of being an émigrée as an extended metaphor to explore other interpretations of the word and the concept of having to leave a place or person.
You could compare ‘The Emigrée’ to:
‘Tissue’ and ‘Checking Out Me History’

7. Homework
Complete the worksheet. Annotate the poem in the anthology, with reference to the poetry tree.

8. Assessment points To develop our poetry analysis skills
Explain how the poem, ‘The Emigrée’ uses specific language and imagery to explore different ideas about oppression and banishment.
Compare the ways in which ‘The Emigrée’ and ‘Checking Out Me History’ present ideas about the conflict between the past and the present.
To develop our poetry analysis skills