Stanza%201

1
Stanza 1
Written in the third person what effect does
this have?

• It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
• To the landscape.
• Half the night she lay awake,
• The howling ship of the wind,
• Its gathering rage,
• Like some dark ancestral spectre.
• Fearful and reassuring.

2
Stanza 1
Reader is asking is this the poet?

• It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
• To the landscape.
• Half the night she lay awake,
• The howling ship of the wind,
• Its gathering rage,
• Like some dark ancestral spectre.
• Fearful and reassuring.

Who is she? Is Grace Nichols lying awake?
3
Stanza 1
Metaphor nautical image, mirroring her journey
across the sea to this country.

• It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
• To the landscape.
• Half the night she lay awake,
• The howling ship of the wind,
• Its gathering rage,
• Like some dark ancestral spectre.
• Fearful and reassuring.

4
Stanza 1
Use of simile, frightening image. Brings to mind
worshipping spirits of ancestors (a practice
slaves took from West Indies to Africa)

• It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
• To the landscape.
• Half the night she lay awake,
• The howling ship of the wind,
• Its gathering rage,
• Like some dark ancestral spectre.
• Fearful and reassuring.

5
Stanza 1

• It took a hurricane, to bring her closer
• To the landscape.
• Half the night she lay awake,
• The howling ship of the wind,
• Its gathering rage,
• Like some dark ancestral spectre.
• Fearful and reassuring.

Oxymoron she fears the storm because it is out
of place here, but it reminds her of home and
brings her closer to where she is now.
6
Stanza 2
Written in the first person now why the change
from Stanza 1?

• Talk to me Huracan
• Talk to me Oya
• Talk to me Shango
• And Hattie
• My sweeping, back-home cousin

Carab indian God of the Wind
Male Storm God
Female Storm God
Name of a hurricane
7
Stanza 2

• Talk to me Huracan
• Talk to me Oya
• Talk to me Shango
• And Hattie
• My sweeping, back-home cousin

Taken as slaves to the Caribbean in times past
(members of the Yoruba tribe)
Personifying the hurricane she feels so close
to it that it is almost part of her family.