Module A – Essay – Komninos’ Poem “Eat”

Resource Description

Komninos’ poem “Eat” explores the satirical nature on societies obsession with diets and physical appearances but it also explores the poet’s personal experiences of entrapment between the two cultures of coming from a European background but living in the Australian culture. Explored through “then I went through a series of fashionable diets”, the poem satirises societies obsession with fad diets which are considered fashionable impacting and shaping how one should be viewed. The fast pace in “the egg diet the rice diet…the fill yourself up with fibre diet” created through cumulation is used to emphases Komninos’ obsession with losing weight and the ridiculousness of some diets in our society that many are able to be fooled of. 

The distinctive voices can be used to determine Komninos’ relationship with every voice through the poem. In the first three stanzas’ the voices of Komninos’ family are conveyed through “eat so your body will grow…a plump one has a warm robust glow”,  “bread and oil is all I ate…so eat all the food on your plate” and “ its wasteful to throw food away…that die from starvation each day” to show the pressure of his family as they are saying that food should not be wasted and people in the world will think you are healthy if they see the size of how you are. The repetition of the word “ate” is fast paced and listed as it is used to engage the amount of eating that Komninos did and shows the authorial voice of the poet. 

Beauty is shown to exist in every way, shape and form. Komninos tries to convey this important message to shape the perspectives of the world and others that in society it is not all about needing to live up to society’s standards. This is conveyed through “but beauty is only skin deep….improving with the advancing years” as it is reflective and is said in a wise tone to show that Komninos has come to a realisation that beauty and physical appearances will deteriorate. “the real person is within your skin…their thoughts and their ideas” shows the tone of acceptance of Komninos’ maturity and that he is not vain and that through this he does not value beauty over brains and uses this poem to send this message to the audience. 

Komninos’ poem ‘Noura from Narooma’ is able to express many distinctive voices that can be able to shape the relationships and perspectives of relationships in the world. The use of imagery in “at church we had to be all happy, all laughing, and looking good, not wearing the same things two weeks in a row” suggest that they are a perfect family however ironically, they are far from it. This is the poets central message that one individual cannot judge others as they do not know want may be going through a person’s life. In “the pain, the pain, was to great. not the pain of the beating, but the pain of what he’d actually done”, a clear voice of a migrant women abused by her husband is symbolised through her helplessness through the use of repetition of “the pain” evoking sympathy from the audience. A direct quote in “ “don’t go!”, I cried, “don’t go my baby, come here to mama.” ” is used to show Noura’s fear and desperation to protect her children representing the father in a negative light. This is further shown in “he started screaming, calling me names, bashing on the door. He was screaming in Arabic, “mad woman, mad women, let me in” ” as it identifies the background of the individual and gives the husband a voice based on what he says and how Noura describes him throughout the poem. 

The rhetorical question in “the social worker convinced me to leave, to go to a refuge in glebe…my children, me, leave my children? what sort of mother would I be” portrays Noura’s confusion and struggle in deciding what to do. It paints an image of a helpless women who is willing to sacrifice her happiness for her children. Ironically, she is later labelled as an unfit mother through her lack of voice and her husband’s manipulation. The repetition and cumulation in Noura’s tone shown though “he’ll never hurt me again I said. he’ll never hurt me again I shouted. he’ll never hurt me again I screamed. he’ll never hurt me again.” builds from “I said” to “I screamed” suggesting that she has regained her voice and courage to take control of her own life. The burning of the house in “I spread kerosene all over the garage…I lit the match” is symbolic and metaphorical as it marks the ending of her battle and destruction of the place which brings back haunting memories as well as her revenge