About Me

My photo
Victoria, Australia
I am an author of Young Adult Fiction books. I worked as a teacher in the Pacific Islands for seven years. Whilst in the Solomon Islands I taught PSSC English before the ethnic tension in 2000 forced a change of plans. I love Pacific literature, art and music. You can find me on Facebook at Beth Montgomery Author.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

Pacific Poets #2 Konai Helu Thaman

Dr Konai Helu Thaman
Poetry is one section of the PSSC English Exam which students can prepare for easily as long as they memorise at least four poems. Tongan academic Dr Konai Helu Thaman is one poet who has several collections of poems to choose from. An old favourite of mine is You, the Choice of my Parents which was first published in 1974. "Island Fire" is a short poem of only 16 lines from this collection. It is a great one to memorise for the exams because it's so short and it can be compared with other poems around such themes as Western education or the generation gap. Konai Helu Thaman's style is rich in imagery as in the lines "...the slow turning of/ Foreign text book pages" and her use of metaphor is also strong considering she has very few lines to work with in this compact piece.
Other excellent poems from this collection include "You, the Choice of my Parents" and "Reality".
Posted by at
Labels: , ,

13 comments:

  1. UnknownOctober 16, 2016 at 5:46 PM

    I love your comment and what it signifiesays..could you please share some tips on how to write poems with a heavy meaning ps I'm 15 and loves literature

    ReplyDelete
  2. UnknownMay 24, 2017 at 8:03 PM

    Please can you help me?
    I want to know how to analys poem

    ReplyDelete
  3. UnknownMarch 13, 2018 at 3:05 PM

    Thank you for sharing Beth. I teach literature in the Solomon Islands. I am impressed at your work. How can I subscribe to read your blogs? Please assist me. Thank you

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJanuary 7, 2019 at 1:54 PM

    Nice poem

    ReplyDelete
  5. UnknownMarch 25, 2019 at 12:48 PM

    Great poems. I've enjoyed studying them in high school. Thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. UnknownSeptember 9, 2019 at 7:38 PM

    Great poems.love it!

    ReplyDelete
  7. UnknownSeptember 28, 2019 at 8:12 PM

    Can you tell what an important issues that this poem has been shown

    ReplyDelete
  8. UnknownSeptember 30, 2019 at 9:02 AM

    Can some one show me the poem

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownMarch 20, 2020 at 2:58 PM

    I enjoyed teaching this poem to my students, the message applied to is here in Kiribati.

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownJuly 15, 2020 at 9:21 AM

    love this poem because it directly to my culture all the way from Tonga...

    ReplyDelete
  11. UnknownMarch 22, 2021 at 4:06 PM

    What are images in this poem I don't know or understand images in poetry

    ReplyDelete
  12. UnknownMarch 22, 2021 at 4:07 PM

    Hepl

    ReplyDelete
  13. UnknownApril 21, 2021 at 7:29 PM

    I have an activity on this poem so really need help please

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)