Ispahan Carpet
Ispahan Carpet explores the writer’s emotions and feelings about the children sitting in the hut all day, weaving with ‘unsupported bird-bones’. This would be somewhere in the middle east, as carpets are very well done there and done by hand which makes it very much more authentic and valuable. People who make these carpets are usually in poverty as they slave away in their huts for at least 6-8 months making one decent sized carpet. The poem describes what goes on in the hut and how sympathetic one would get as the poem then broadens views of the world and how this has an impact on the writer.
The poem creates a view of inside the hut, and how a Persian family sits on ‘rough timber gallows’ to weave the carpets. The word ‘gallows’ has a connection to something more darker, it is incorporated in another phrase ‘a gallows tree’ which is where people are executed the connection to this is that the people who weave the carpets will only ever stay indoors all the time and do nothing else but weave a it is their only source of income. The hut where the ‘dark eyed Persian family’ lives is not very filled with anything but ‘blackened pots and jars’. This also supports the idea of this family being in poverty more or less, as their hut is nothing but ‘cavernous hearth’ and a flickering fire to keep warm.
The poem then goes into the lifestyle of children weaving the carpet. The poem describes these children against birds. ‘’Eight-year-old girls sit sparrowed on a plank, Rope-rising with the pattern, their unsupported bird-bones, Bent like old women” This particular quote use very much bird characteristics to describe the girls, as they sit on their planks all day, with backs arched with no support weaving looking like an aged woman. So you can see the similarities because birds rest on wooden beams, wire poles etc. with having their naturally arched back all day. This is what the women and little girls do to help support their family, they learn from their mothers, aunts and older sisters they have no time to go outside and play and run and act how normal children would do at their age, they sacrifice this to make income, which is not much. Thinking about the children growing up with a childhood like this you would contemplate on your own childhood, which would probably be filled with happy memories and funny moments. The poem adds, “One hundred to the square centimeter, says the tour guide proudly-“, to have had said that and be proud of it is somewhat sad, being those children and only being used because of having small fingers to tie knots better is very miserable. This emphasises the great profession these children have at such a young age and again the reminder of a lost childhood. The writer has the sudden realisation of the amount of effort and reward the children receive and add is more depressing that expected.
The third verse shows the poem expanding her thoughts on what she had just experienced. “One hundred knots in the space of my thumbnail” the quote powerfully makes all realize that all the work done from these children and people takes a fairly long time, so many knots to be done just for a centimeter. “One hundred heartbeats of a young child’s growing” this quote makes another realization that the children sitting on the planks weaving all day every day should not be there, they should be elsewhere, playing, going to school and enjoying their youth but instead they have to sit on a plank weaving so much to create so little. “One hundred hours for the space a foot will crush down” You would also realise that the people who purchase these carpets might not have the sympathy or appreciation of such a beautiful piece of artwork that children and the elderly spend so much time to make. The thought of having people walking, rubbing dirty feet on beautifully made carpets that take such an incredible amount of effort to make puts even more sympathy in for those children.
The structure of the poem resembles something like a magnifying glass, looking closer and closer into the situation. The first stanza concentrates on the atmosphere and the people in the hut, going into the second stanza, the readers get a closer look to the children that are producing these carpets and how the resemble old women with their ‘unsupported bird-bones’. The third stanza goes deeper, it looks into the carpet and how much effort and precision goes into producing the carpet also the significance of ‘one hundred knots in the space of my thumb-nail’ really shows the readers how much sacrifice goes into one carpet. The fourth stanza, portrays the writers realisation of her life and how much more fortunate she is compared. The structure of the poem doesn’t just magnify on the situation but also on the readers as we empathise for the children.
The importance of lines 18-20 really takes the poem into another view. “O, eyes whose whole horizon is the carpet”, the poem grasps the idea of these children just sitting there weaving and understands that since that making carpet is their only source of money that no matter what their wishes may be they would always have to do this thus “whole horizon is the carpet” the carpet revolves around their lives, it is everything they have. “Who can unravel the world’s weaving?” the whole insight on the world and how the way the world is put together, how some people are lucky enough to buy the carpet and walk all over it, like it’s nothing and then you have the people whose entire life is in that carpet.
The very last verse brings you back into the hut. “My swollen hand is gentle on the greenstick shoulder” the author describes her hand as the swollen hand as she is older than the child who probably already has them because of weaving all day every day, and as she places it on the child’s shoulder the child looks back at her with “speaking darkness” in her eyes as she weaves for the rest of her life.
To conclude I would think that the poem broadens one’s mind when you’ve read it. The poem starts in a hut where a family weaves a carpet but then it slowly takes you to see and question yourself why, are things the way they are. To feel sympathetic to the children whose childhood is nothing but sitting on a plank ‘bent like old women’ weaving all day to have the littlest income. I would say that this particular poem has a very depressing theme, it would make you feel fortunate to have what you have and overall it creates a dark image in your mind, having children sitting in a dark hut weaving with all their effort and having the tiniest things done.