Analysing ''Island Man'' by Grace Nichols

The poem ‘’Island Man’’ was written by Grace Nichols in the 1970s. The poem is about a Caribbean man that loves his country and would like to go back, but he lives in London and he doesn’t like it at all. Grace Nichols explores different themes that are evident inside this poem. The main theme in this poem is home. I think this is because everything this man talks about is going back to his beloved land in the Caribbean, but he can’t maybe because of his job in London. The way Nichols describes how he feels when he dreams about the Caribbean has a lot of power and also imagery. And the Island Man wakes up / To the sound of blue surf / In his head / The steady breaking and wombing. In this quote we can see how she uses blue and surf in one context. Blue is because of the color of the sea and surf because of the sport. Also, surf may refer to how the people are in the Caribbean, warm and familiar and that is why she compares something beautiful as surf to the people.

Something unique and inspirational about this poem is the imagery. Grace Nichols uses a lot of imagery for us to picture the island and London. There is also contrast between the description of the island and the description of London. Wild seabirds / And fishermen pulling out to sea / The sun surfacing defiantly. We can see that she uses nature to describe her land. I think this is powerful because nature is very beautiful and she wants to transmit that she sees her country the same way she sees a landscape. Again she uses surfing as part of her description, and now we can infer that she loves surfing and the sea and how the sun is so bright and big. On the other hand, she describes London as a grey of metallic soar / to surge of wheel / To dull North Circular roar. We can actually see that here is a contrast because now she talks of London as a negative place to live. This is evident because she refers to the wheels of the cars and the noise of the traffic everyday. For a person that comes from an ambient that is very soft and smooth to live and then have to live in a place where there is traffic and noise can be seen much more horrible than a city person.

The language in this poem is very easy to understand but it also has some parts that might be referring to sounds that are linked to sounds in the island. Groggily groggily might be an example of a sound that can come from the island. She uses sensory language because she can transmit that the man from the poem uses the five senses when he remembers the Caribbean islands. The imagery for vision is almost anywhere in the poem maybe with the seabirds or the brightness of the sun. When Nichols refers to his small emerald island can be vision because of the nice green of the stone of also touch of certain things such as sand that are present in a beach. With all the description on cars in London can be smog a smell that comes form the city and is very unpleasant to her.

As we see, in this poem the main ‘’conflict’’ is this juxtaposition between the Caribbean Island, that to her are beautiful, and London, that is very ugly. This can be an example of juxtaposition because of the way she thinks about these two places. Alliteration is present in this poem in the lines To surge of wheels / To dull North Circular roar. This is the only example present of alliteration in this poem because these are the only two lines that start with the same letter. The rhythm of the poem is regular; this means that there are about 6 words by line and around 4 lines by stanza. The rhythm is also constant and remains almost the same throughout the whole poem. There is no rhyme in this poem but because of the rhythm we can actually see that it is not needed.

Enjambment in this poem can be evident when you read a line and you immediately pass to the next one without stop. This might be created because the two lines have to be together in order to make sense and have a much bigger impact on the reader.

In my opinion, the contrast created between these two very different places might be supported be the fact that although the are different, he has to cope with is and continue living in London even though he doesn’t like it. We can see this at the last line that says Another London day without a full stop. This might be telling us that a common day with noise and bad weather will be going on forever.