The following poems convey a sense of alienation from society. "Search for My tongue" by Sujata Bhatt, "Half-Caste" by John Agard and "Nothing's changed" by , all used a range of devices such as imagery and structure to explore the theme and to convey a sense of alienation from society.
The first poem, "Search for My Tongue", deals with alienation when learning a new language in an unknown country. The poet is trying to show the reader that how difficult it is to maintain two languages simultaneously: the mother tongue and the foreign tongue. She feels alien in her own country, not to be able to speak her own language and also in the foreign country, not to be able to speak the foreign language.
The poet uses metaphors to describe the languages she knows as tongue. "If you had two tongues in your mouth.". She used this to show that if you really lost your tongue, then it is difficult for you communicate with people thus making you feel alienated or left out to the society. This line also suggest to me that the poet accuses the reader to make the reader feel the same way as the poet do, to have two tongues and having problems to maintain them.
The first stanza of the poem is telling us that the poet is trying to search or remember her mother tongue. This fits its title "Search for My Tongue", searching for her mother tongue, which then she found in the second and third stanzas. She include her mother tongue lines to show to the reader that she has finally found her mother tongue thus making her not feel alienated from her own society any more.
She also describe her feelings after gotten her mother tongue back, towards the end of the poem, like a flower blossoming out of her mouth and feels beautiful. She uses this so to show to the reader that it is step by step to remember her mother tongue, like a growing plant.
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The second poem, "Half-caste", deals with alienation in different types of people.
