Where There’s a Wall

1. Where There’s a Wall Joy Kogawa

2. Joy Kogawa • Canadian of Japanese descent • Young girl growing up during WW2 – born 1935 • Sent to internment camps in Slocan Valley, BC and Coaldale, AB

3. What do I Remember of the Evacuation? What do I remember of the evacuation?I remember my father telling Tim and meAbout the mountains and the trainAnd the excitement of going on a trip.What do I remember of the evacuation?I remember my mother wrappingA blanket around me and myPretending to fall asleep so she would be happyAlthough I was so excited I couldn't sleep(I hear there were people herdedInto the Hastings Park like cattle.Families were made to move in two hoursAbandoning everything, leaving petsAnd possessions at gun point.I hear families were broken upMen were forced to work. I heardIt whispered late at nightThat there was suffering) andI missed my dolls. What do I remember of the evacuation?I remember Miss Foster and Miss TuckerWho still live in VancouverAnd who did what they couldAnd loved the children and who gave meA puzzle to play with on the train.And I remember the mountains and I wasSix years old and I swear I saw a giantGulliver of Gulliver's Travels scanning the horizonAnd when I told my mother she believed it tooAnd I remember how careful my parents wereNot to bruise us with bitternessAnd I remember the puzzle of Lorraine LifeWho said "Don't insult me" when IProudly wrote my name in JapaneseAnd Tim flew the Union JackWhen the war was over but LorraineAnd her friends spat on us anywayand I prayed to the God who lovesAll the children in his sightThat I might be white.

4. Where There’s a Wall Where there’s a wall there’s a way through a gate or door. There’s even a ladder perhaps and a sentinel who sometimes sleeps. There are secret passwords you can overhear. There are methods of torture for extracting clues to maps of underground passages. There are zeppelins, helicopters, rockets, bombs, battering rams, armies with trumpets whose all at once blast shatters the foundations. Where there’s a wall there are words to whisper by loose bricks, wailing prayers to utter, birds to carry messages taped to their feet. There are letters to be written – poems even. Faint as in a dream is the voice that calls from the belly of the wall.

5. Meaning 1. What is the theme of “Where There’s a Wall”? Refer to specific evidence from the poem to support your interpretation. 2. Analyze the significance of the poem’s title. Support your analysis with reference to the poem.

6. Form and Style 3. Kogawa employs parallel structure and repetition of “Where there’s a wall” and “there’s” or “there are” in her poem. What might her purpose be in repeating “Where there’s a wall” only twice, while following these lines with seven phrases beginning with “there is” or “there are”?

7. Barriers The human spirit has triumphed over barriers for many eras – consider the biblical, historical, and literary allusions • “Book of Joshua” in Old Testament, Chapter 6 – Joshua defeated Jericho without a battle • Wailing Wall (Western Wall) – a remnant of the wall of the second temple in Jerusalem; a place of pilgrimage, lamentation, and prayer • Berlin Wall – a wire and concrete barrier erected by the East German government in 1961 to separate the city of Berlin into East and West Berlin. East Germans trying to cross often lost their lives The wall was dismantled in 1989