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Exile
- Alan Duff
About Poet:Alan Duff (born 26 October 1950, Rotorua, New Zealand) is a novelist and newspaper columnist,
most well known as the author of “Once Were Warriors”
About Poem:
The title of the poem suggests the speaker is away from his home and, although comfortable there, he does feel the need to go back to his home.
The speaker in the poem is a tiger kept in captivity in the zoo. He states how it is like to be in a cage. He smells different animals around. He has no appetite as he is provided with easy meat. Since he is in the cage, he is mocked by other animals. It is not easy for him to break free from the cage. Therefore, he plans to return to his own home, the jungle, at dusk.
The poem might be trying to tell us that a man in bondage always plans to free himself despite the comfort he is given there.
Words:
striped: adj= marked with patterns
barred: adj = prevented or blocked
gazelle: n. = small antelope
mock: v. = imitate with contempt
sniffing: v. = inhale through nose
plotting: v. = making a secret plan
