Structure and Language of the poem 'Presents from my Aunts in Pakistan'... some ideas

Is Moniza Alvi Pakistani or English?   She wants to be both in different ways, and the two cultures seem to be 'at war' within her thinking.  

'Presents from my Aunts...' is a brilliantly written poem, and its structure and language are full of the uncertainty that the author feels about her cultural identity.  

Structure

•   The poem is written in 'free verse' - its short lines dot about on the page, as the mind of a person remembering dots from thought to thought - and reproducing the confusion of her own mind about her identity.

•   It has five loose stanzas, each starting a new train of thought - again to reproduce the feeling of 'musing over the past'.

•   It breaks lines at unusual places to create emphasis (e.g. 'I longed/ for denim and corduroy').

•   It uses some alliteration and internal rhyme - 'apple-green sari, silver-bordered for my teens' or 'shaded rooms, screened..., sorting presents'.

Language

•   The poem is written in the first person - the word 'I' occurs 12 times, which makes it reflective and intensely personal, and gives the reader the feeling that he is looking into the author's life.

•   The poem uses the language of conflict ('consider the cruelty'/ 'a fractured land') to parallel the internal conflict between 'English' and 'Punjabi' in Moniza's own thinking.

•   The poem uses the language of contrast to emphasise the difference between the two cultures (e.g. the colour of clothes - peacock blue v. denim) and to reproduce Moniza's own ambivalence about her home country (beggars v Shamalar Gardens)

•   The poem uses lots of images to convey her inner pain about her identity (e.g. the bangles drawing blood, 'I was aflame', the camel-skin lamp, the stolen jewellery, trying to 'see herself' in the miniature mirrors).

•   The poem leaves the reader with a powerful image - of the author 'staring through the fretwork at the Shalimar Gardens' - nothing resolved, still haunted by the beauty of her lost identity but irretrievably cut off from it.