Re-branding – poem by Michaela Coplen

 Re-branding – poem by Michaela Coplen

The poem won the first prize in Troubadour International Poetry Prize 2019. I request readers to read the poem first from the above link. (The poem is preceded by the judges' remarks.) Please read my review after reading the poem. Thanks.

‘Re-branding’ is a poem through which the narrator refugee’s remorse and pain are felt by the reader. The success of this poem is the way in which the deep pain is narrated by comparing two gatherings, that is, the previous one in their land and the present one in the new country. This poem has its strengths, but what I appreciated was the scope in the genre where a glaring omission is overwhelmingly eclipsed by the power of expression. The same omission in a fiction would have made the work look unedited and unstructured. The poem at the outset is narrated in the present where the immigrant reminisces the past when is a similar gathering many boys compete to retrieve a coin thrown into the camp fire and the winner brands his hand with the hot coin and the scar is macho for him. The omission in the narration of the previous incident is branding is done by many boys which is not possible as the winner is only one. Still, that instance of branding only leads us to what the poet means by re-branding. Whatever had the migrants’ plight been in the home land, the struggle and the show of strength and resilience amongst compatriots was part of a proud identity. Here in a gathering of same people the very effort to spell one’s success in acclimatization and falling in line with the alien requirements is another way of branding but not macho though. The sense of belonging to home land is not at all geography based, nor racial but based on the bonding with the fellowmen. The other side of this is the pain of alienation.