The Emigrée & Kamikaze

This lesson pairs two poems that explore the tension between personal memory and external pressure. Rumens's The Emigrée presents a speaker who clings to a sunlit memory of her homeland despite political darkness, while Garland's Kamikaze tells the story of a Japanese pilot who turns back from a suicide mission, only to face a lifetime of shame. Both poems examine how individuals resist — or are crushed by — the power of ideology, community expectation, and memory.

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The Emigrée — Carol Rumens (1993)

Context

Fact	Detail
Poet	Carol Rumens (b. 1944)
Background	English poet with a deep interest in Eastern European politics and culture
Theme	Memory, exile, identity, the power of personal recollection vs political reality
Context	Written during a period of political upheaval in Eastern Europe (fall of the Berlin Wall, Yugoslav Wars)
Form	Three stanzas of irregular length, free verse