Look We Have Coming to Dover!

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Prow’d’ also creates a homophone, and therefore simultaneously suggests that the tourists are proud. The immigrants maintain their culture throughout the poem, even in the dream future they still keep their language in the safety of their middle-class homes. At anytime they know that they might be stabbed in the back or hurt by something simple, like asthma contracted in parks. The poem also considers the uncertainty of the modern world, which is very much in keeping with ‘Look We Have Coming to Dover!

It is scary, employed by the speaker to show how those in England would view the immigrants coming to their country. Some readers may see this as showing waves and tides with this gradual but clear flow and change, or alternatively the movement of people across the world throughout history and different cycles of immigration and emigration. Taking in its sights Matthew Arnold's 'land of dreams', the collection explores the idealism and reality of a multicultural Britain with wit, intelligence and no small sense of mischief.Nagra, whose own parents came to England from the Punjab in the 1950s, conjures a jazzed hybrid language to tell stories of aspiration, assimilation, alienation and love, from a stowaway's first footprint on Dover beach to the disenchantment of subsequent generations. Modern Britain is scarred by hostility to immigrants and even the thunder ‘unbladders/yobbish rain’, like the yobs who will attack them.

One example is “ Bedford van” which became a well known piece of British culture throughout the 20th century, including many wartime vehicles branded as “Bedford”.

This would be very effective for readers who notice the inclusion of such words but don’t immediately see them as ‘foreign’ because it would demonstrate how language has evolved, and how little it has been realised by modern society. The inclusion of “invade” introduces the ongoing theme of words with negative connotations, but this one is particularly notable because of the direct link to hostile people entering another country. Suffice to say the man knows his stuff but as amusing as studying Shakespeare can be (for novelty value if nothing else), it pales in comparison to Mr Nagra's work: the patron saint of English Literature (a BLUE CHIP subject). Although many of the poems dwell on darker themes -- racism, oppression, arranged marriages -- the prevailing tone is one of exuberance and charm, as exemplified by the first and last poems of the collection.