The Immigrant's Song

By Tishani Doshi

I liked this poem for its story it told and the message it worked to convey. It had rather nice imagery in it as well, so that, of course, befitted me as well, considering the assignment. A poem is pretty much made, in my opinion, by the imagery it uses and the things that it tells the reader. It seemed to me that the speaker was a person - any person - who had gone through the harshness of war and violence and just wanted to forget. I think the intended audience was anyone who wanted to ask the speaker about war and what it was like when all that speaker wanted was not to remember. This poem has a way of telling anyone who's curious just how harsh these rough times can be and why it would be best just to forget. While I don't necessarily agree with that sentiment, I can understand where the speaker is coming from. I particularly liked the lines "Let us not name our old friends//who are unravelling like fairy tales//in the forests of the dead." To me, this particular part of the poem is the most descriptive and central to the purpose of the poem. It's saying that those who have died in fighting are left alone to rot where they are, and no matter how much one may wish otherwise, nothing is going to be changed about it. The lines "Let us not speak of the long arms of sky//that used to cradle us at dusk," are also cool because they describe a calm, relaxing night where there were no worries. "You might pray that the paper//whispers your story to the water,//that the water sings it to the trees,//that the trees howl and howl//it to the leaves." These last few lines where my second favorite, because they bring inanimate objects to life, creating a beautiful, calming scene of whispering sounds taking one's worries away.