Commentary- Blessing by Imtiaz Dharker Essay

Imtiaz Dharker’s poem describes rain as its blessing to a dry place, as the short direct sentences in the first stanza suggests there was no hope on that land: â€Å"There never is enough water.† The line shows the desperateness of rain as it sets a negative tone to start the poem. However, as the poem progress, there was an increase in hope and energy, seen from the energetic and positive language such as, â€Å"rush†, â€Å"bursts†, â€Å"crashes† and â€Å"roar†. These are used to associate with the action and the liveliness brought by the rain. The poet is trying to compare rain to a god-like blessing as it says from the title, and also from the word â€Å"congregation† as the word is related to religious. It described rain as a god-gifted blessing to the land without hope, describing the echo of rain to: â€Å"the voice of a kindly god.† We can see the importance of water to the people from the land as water is described as precious items such as â€Å"silver†, â€Å"fortune† and â€Å"liquid sun†, suggesting it’s importance to these people. We can see further illustration of this idea through the celebration as children celebrates and â€Å"sings† after being given water. The excitement of people can also be seen from the structure of the poem, seen from the enjambment which ran from the third stanza until the end of the poem, we can see the tone being very exciting that there wasn’t a pause, contrasting with the first stanza where the short and slow lines reflects the lack of energy. The most noticeable example is: â€Å"every man woman child for streets around butts in† We would expect commas being used between man woman child, but there isn’t, showing the excitement and the hurry. The poet also cleverly uses the stanza length to reflect the amount of water and excitement, with the 3rd stanza being the pinnacle of the event, there are and it differs from the short 1st stanza which suggests The use of onomatopoeia and oxymoron also highlights the importance of water: â€Å"Imagine the drip of it, the small splash, echo† The poet describes a small drip of water having a echo, which is usually associated with large items, and it gives us an idea of how a small amount of water can be seen as a huge importance to these people.