Fabiana Camposano

POETRY PAST PAPER 1

HOW DOES AWOONOR MAKE THE SEA EATS THE LAND AT HOME SUCH A MOVING POEM?

The poem revolves around the idea that the sea is a force of nature, and as such, cannot be controlled
and will do whatever it wants to do. Here we see an example of this referring to a town which seems to
be the hometown of the author, and the fact that perhaps it was struct by a tsunami or any other
natural disaster that caused the sea level to rise and cause destruction in its wake.

And the poem makes you sympathize with the people and their situations as they are being narrated,
from the scenery of all the important stuff around the town that’s being carried away, from cooking
pots, cement walls and even goats and other farm animals are not spared from the strength of the sea,
and no matter which god or gods the people pray to, the sea will do whatever it wants to do and there’s
no stopping it.

It’s a moving poem because it’s something you can relate to, even tough you may not live in a city near
the water and the sea, a situation where a loving mother and her children shivering from the cold while
looking at the scene, looking at the horror and the decimation, at all their goods and properties being
swept away, one cannot avoid to feel for them, from feeling anguish and despair, to feeling that sense
of powerlessness that fills you in when you realize that’s an impossible situation and that, in a way, their
lives will not be the same anymore because even if the water recedes and they can go back to the land,
nothing will remain since all their stuff, all that belongs to them, even the farm animals, will be sitting at
the bottom of the seafloor.