Our Whole Life

Our whole life a translation
the permissible fibs

and now a knot of lies
eating at itself to get undone

Words bitten thru words

meanings burnt-off like paint
under the blowtorch

All those dead letters
rendered into the oppressor’s language

Trying to tell the doctor where it hurts

like the Algerian
who has walked from his village, burning

his whole body a cloud of pain
and there are no words for this

except himself

Themes

• Oppression
• Colonisation
• Feminism
• Societal deceit
• Failure of language

Imagery

• Burning man
• Pain,
• Blowtorch burning paint
• Auroboros (snake eating it’s tail)

Poetic Techniques

• Simile
• Metaphor
• Assonance “his whole body a cloud of pain”

Symbolism

Burning body to express the pain that can’t be verbally explained, “words bitten thru words”, the continuous cycle of lie buying lie

Tone + Mood

• Suppression
• Frustration

Rhyme + Structure

• Free verse
• Enjambment (run on lines)
• No formal rhyme structure