Jackie Kay Essay (student paper)

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Jackie Kay

 

Choose between 1-3 themes explored in Jackie Kay’s poetry. How does she engage her reader to think about these themes ?

 

All throughout Jackie Kay’s collection of poems « Life Mask », she explores various themes and engage her reader to think about them. Jackie Kay published a variety of beautiful collections of poems and « Life Mask » is one of them. In this collection she particularly explores the themes of nature, love and aging which are key themes in all her work.

 

  First of all, Jackie Kay uses the theme of nature to describe the gorgeous African landscape and biodiversity which brightens her poems but can also make them more profound and raw. Nature is particularly explored in the poem « Life Mask » with animal and floral imagery. Firstly, the animal, « an earful of birdsongs » creates auditive imagery and engages us to think about the sounds of nature. We hear sounds of birds singing beautiful songs for us to listen to and appreciate the environment around us. Secondly, the description of birds continues with « the huge heron’s wings » which emphasizes the auditive imagery. The sound of the huge wings beating the air and makes us think about the freedom of nature as the heron has no barriers and can simply fly away. The « h » and « s » sounds create a soft and breathless sound adding to the auditive imagery. Lastly, the floral imagery, « the camomile lawn » creates another dimension to the description of nature using the sense of smell with the gentle perfume of camomile

Then, the theme of love is explored by Jackie Kay in the poem « Her ». She uses this theme to address the subject of human relations and especially her relationship with the woman she loves. In this poem, the repetition of the pronoun « her » that Jackie Kay uses to describe her lover makes this lover mysterious and superior. It is as if Jackie Kay wanted to keep her lover for herself, to keep her a secret and this shows how much she cherishes this person. After that, the pronouns « I » and « She », used to describe Jackie Kay and her lover, are replaced by the pronoun « We » in the last stanzas. This shows the evolution in the relationship between Jacki Kay and her lover as two separate beings are now described by a same pronoun and now form only one person. Lastly, the animalisation « We two galloped a pace » transforms this relationship by making it more bestial and primitive. The two lovers reveal their true nature and completely trust each other.

 Finally, the theme of aging is used by Jackie kay to address the subject of her son growing up. She does want him to grow into an adult and have to face the cruelty of adulthoodbut rather to stay an innocnent child. Childhood is explored in Piano 4pm, firstly the musical notes like « Doh ray me » throughout the poem creates a structure and an evolution in the poem. Metaphorically, these notes represent the evolutive and well structured process of growing up. Secondly, the metaphor « holding the moment well » expresses the idea that when Jackie Kay is with her son, the time stops which shows how much she loves him as a mother. It also expresses her wish for her son to stay a child and stay with her. Lastly, the auditive imagery « I can hear him grow up » shows that Jackie Kay is worried about her son growing up, leaving her and losing his child’s innocence. This worry manifests itself as a sound in Jackie kay’s mind, she can hear this as his son piano playing is becomming more complex and rich

 

To conclude, these different themes that Jackie Kay help us addressing them in a more personnal way, like her, who explores her personnal experiences. We are pushed to ask ourselves how we feel about these themes, what experiences we can link to them and how they make what we are ? We can also apply this reasoning to the question of what effects in general does Jackie Kay’s poetry has on us.

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