Here’s a full analysis of the poem ‘Homecoming’ by Lenrie Peters, tailored towards A-Level students but also suitable for those studying at a higher level.
Includes:
VOCABULARY
STORY / SUMMARY
SPEAKER / VOICE
LANGUAGE FEATURES
STRUCTURE / FORM
CONTEXT
ATTITUDES
THEMES
‘The present reigned supreme
Like the shallow floods over the gutters’
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to copyright)
VOCABULARY
Homecoming - the welcoming back of a person who has been away into their home
or community, often a celebration for students when they return
Reigned supreme - was the most important, beat all the rest
Shallow - the opposite of deep
Gutters - the drains that carry away rainwater, in streets or on the edges of a house
Shutters - blinds on windows that are usually made of wood and open or close to
regulate light
Sapless - without sap, the liquid in plants which carries energy and nutrients around
the plant
Seedlings - small plants that have just sprouted
Luxuriant - rich
The Virgins - a symbol of purity and innocence in Christian tradition, women who
are unmarried and have never had sexual relations
Paced - walked steadily
STORY/SUMMARY
A group of students (including the speaker) are returning to The Gambia after studying
and working abroad. They are struck by the present moment of the country being
different from how they remembered, it was like the shallow water that collects in
gutters and runs over the paths that the speaker used to walk. They saw a house with
all of its windows shuttered and locked away.
The sudden change of everything when the speaker returns home is very strange and
difficult to process, it feels as if he buried memories of the place when he left and they
, are all now coming back to the surface of his mind, he had forgotten to properly
organise them or deal with them so the experience is quite disorienting.
The dry roots of the older generations (of which the speaker is part) have fed the new
people that have grown in the country. These people are like ‘wind-swept seedlings’
as their cultural influences are not just local, they copy Western culture too. Where
once the people took part in Christian ceremonies, the new generation of The Gambia
are now growing like ‘luxuriant weeds’.
On the edge of town near the cemetery there is a house with ‘new skeletons’ - people
who are barely alive, likely because of poverty. The house has no shadow; it will leave
no lasting impression on Gambian culture.
These images of the town are all that’s left to greet the speaker and his companions on
their homecoming, after they travelled the whole world and were so looking forward to
returning home.
SPEAKER/VOICE
Homecoming is supposed to be a time for celebration and grounding, where those
who return home after an extended period away from their country or city look
forward to getting back to a sense of familiarity and regular routine. However, the
speaker remarks that things have changed since he left, and he is shocked by what
he returns to: he sees closed off houses, people suffering in poverty, ‘weeds’ have
grown and taken the place of the stronger, rooted people that were there before. The
poem has a dejected tone as the speaker is disappointed at his return home.
LANGUAGE
● Personification - ‘The present reigned supreme’ - the poem begins with an
affirmation that the present moment is the most dominant impression that the
speaker and his companions get when they return home - it is not nostalgic,
they see nothing familiar that they were expecting to find comfort in, instead the
country has adapted to the present moment, and not altogether in a positive
sense. The idea of the ‘present’ as a character with a dominating presence
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