Island Man Commentary

Island Man by Grace Nichols lived in Guyana until she was eight years old and then she immigrated to the UK. Her poem projects how Nichols feels very identified with “Island Man” as she remembers the sound of the oscillating waves compared to the roar of the urban traffic in London. The poem is short and it can be divided into two different sections, one being the Caribbean dream and the other being the London reality. The poem includes different line lengths used to create rhythm and rhyme but also to specifically show that the poem sideways represents tall buildings just like the city. Besides it does not include punctuation to allow the poem to flow easily.

At the start of the poem the reader might question if the Man in the island is consciously awake because he seems dizzy and confused as “island man wakes up/to the sound of blue surf”. We can interpret this just like if you’d be awakened by your alarm clock in the morning and you have just been dreaming but you suddenly wake up in a completely different room which is not yours and you feel confused because a minute ago you were in a different world and it takes you a moment to recognize where you are. Also this stanza is an example of sensory image. Nevertheless, the man then feels he is where he should be, for instance, “the steady breaking and wombing” the word wombing relates to “womb” which can be associated with motherhood. This is a positive aspect because the man feels he is at home therefore feels secure and content like you would feel inside your mothers womb even though he might have been woken up and found himself disorientated.  

Furthermore, in the second verse it jumps from being in a relaxed place like the womb to the “wild seabirds” this shows that the man is now clearly awake and he can hear and see the “fisherman pushing out to the sea”. There is a repetition of the “s” sound, therefore sibilance in this stanza and the next “the sun surfacing defiantly”. It is also an example of alliteration because it is giving the sun human qualities like “surfing”. The word defiantly represents that the man does not want the sun to rise but it is going to happen anyway, this can be like a clue to tell the man something is going to change and that the peacefulness of the island might come to an end. In addition, the use of colours like “blue” and “emerald” represent how the island is precious and valuable to him and also it creates imagery of the gradual change in colours you would normally see in the Caribbean Sea. The final line “he always comes back        groggily groggily” shows a gap, this could have been done in purpose by Nichols to show that he is moving to reality and if you see the poem side ways it shows one of the tallest buildings which can represent that he is closer to the city.

On the second section of the poem, there is now a transition between the island and the city. The first stanza “ comes back to sands” the words come back link back to the island because they are repeated to the last stanza. The man feels the need to go back to the “sands” feel the texture and the warmth he is unable to feel now that he has moved to the city. In contrast to the nice colours “blue and emerald” in the city Nicholls decides to interpret it as “grey metallic soar”. This links to the dull weather of England but also the word metallic symbolizes stiffness and coldness, it gives the impression of industrialisation and worthless in comparison to the valuable emerald. There are a lot of words in the second section that are associated with nature to describe the city. This is a juxtaposition of the city parallel to the island.

It is clear that the man is not enjoying London and that he feels fatigued by the traffic, for instance, “dull North Circular roar” is a very busy highway in London and Nichols might have changed the word “road to roar” on purpose to explicitly show how travelling through this road feels like. It’s impressive how she is able to play with the words making the reader vividly imagine them. Another example is “his crumpled pillow waves” the word pillow shows how at least when the man goes to bed at night it reminds him of the soothing waves that he left behind and this is all he possesses in the foggy city of London.  This has also got connection to the “island man heaves himself” because we can interpret he is finding it difficult to get out of bed and survive “another London day”, this last line has been left separate to the rest of the poem to represent how the man feels, lonely and misunderstood but he has got to deal with it as it is his normal reality.

All of the literary techniques used by Grace Nichols make the poem full of emotion and by then end the reader can feel what the Island man is feeling. The techniques enlighten the poem even though it is only a few verses long it manages to represent what moving away from your own fantasy means. Finally, the poem makes you reflect what it means to have a major change in where you live and to leave your roots behind.