Kamikaze & The Emigrée
Beatrice Garland’s ‘Kamikaze’
Beatrice Garland wrote ‘Kamikaze’ from the perspective of a daughter telling the story of her father, a Japanese kamikaze pilot who turned his plane around instead of completing his mission. The poem explores the devastating consequences of this decision: his family and community treat him as though he no longer exists, shaming him into a living death.
In Japanese culture during WWII, kamikaze pilots were considered heroes making the ultimate sacrifice for the Emperor. To refuse a mission was the deepest possible dishonour. The pilot’s family would have been shamed by his return, and the community would have treated him as dead — a fate many considered worse than actual death.
“Her father embarked at sunrise / with a flask of water, a samurai sword” — The opening is deceptively calm. “Sunrise” suggests a new beginning, not an ending. The “samurai sword” connects the pilot to the ancient warrior code of bushido, which demanded death before dishonour.
“a shaven head / full of powerful incantations” — The pilot’s head is “full” of ritual chants, not of his own thoughts. He has been filled up with other people’s beliefs. Later the poem turns to tender, personal memory — waiting on the shore for “grandfather’s boat” — and that ordinary human life is what the pilot is being asked to throw away.
“the dark shoals of fishes / flashing silver as their bellies / swivelled towards the sun” — The vivid natural imagery represents life, beauty, and freedom — everything the pilot would lose. The fish turning “towards the sun” mirrors his own turn away from death. Nature reminds him of what it means to be alive.
“they treated him / as though he no longer existed” — After his return, the pilot is socially dead. His mother “never spoke again / in his presence”. This silence is a form of psychological punishment more cruel than physical death — he chose life, but was given a living death instead.
“he must have wondered / which had been the better way to die” — The devastating final line reveals that both options led to death: physical death in the mission, or social death at home. The poem questions whether his choice to live was worth it.
Structure of ‘Kamikaze’
The poem uses indirect speech (“she said, he must have wondered”) rather than letting the pilot speak directly. He is silenced even within the poem, just as he was silenced by his community. The shift from third person narrative to the daughter’s first person reflection at the end marks the poem’s emotional turn.
Carol Rumens’s ‘The Emigrée’
Carol Rumens wrote ‘The Emigrée’ from the perspective of someone who left their homeland as a child and clings to idealised memories of it, even though the country has since been consumed by conflict. The speaker’s memory is “sunlight-clear” — bright, warm, and unblemished — despite the reality of war and oppression.
The title uses the feminine French form “Emigrée” (with the accent), indicating the speaker is female. An emigrée is someone who has left their country, often for political reasons. Rumens deliberately leaves the country unnamed — the poem could apply to any exile from any conflict.
“There once was a country... I left it as a child” — The fairy-tale opening (“There once was”) immediately establishes nostalgia and loss. The country exists only in memory, like a story. “As a child” explains why the memories are idealised: a child’s perspective filters out complexity.
“my memory of it is sunlight-clear” — The compound adjective “sunlight-clear” dominates the poem. Light imagery recurs constantly, making the memories glow with warmth and beauty. This brightness resists every negative update about the country.
“They accuse me of being dark in their free city” — The pronoun “They” is ominous and vague — representing society, perhaps racists, perhaps the government. “Dark” could refer to skin colour, foreignness, or the suspicion directed at immigrants. The irony of “free city” is sharp: the city claims freedom but persecutes the outsider.
“My city takes me dancing through the city / of walls” — The personified city from her memory “dances” with her, suggesting joy and freedom. This contrasts with the “city of walls” — her current reality of barriers, exclusion, and hostility. The internal rhyme and flowing rhythm capture the grace of the memory.
Comparing Garland and Rumens
Both poems explore the conflict between individual identity and the power of society or place. The kamikaze pilot is destroyed by social rejection; the emigrée is sustained by personal memory despite social hostility. Both speakers are defined by an impossible choice: the pilot chose life over duty and was punished; the emigrée clings to a homeland that no longer exists as she remembers it.
Both poems use light imagery: in ‘Kamikaze’, the fish “swivelled towards the sun” — beauty that calls the pilot back to life. In ‘The Emigrée’, the memory is “sunlight-clear” — light that defies reality. Both suggest that personal experience and memory can be more powerful than politics or ideology.