hello and welcome to another tras video in today's video we're going to be analyzing the poem Touch by hu Leen so firstly a little bit about our poet H lean lived between 1939 and 2019 he was a sou African poet who was also an anti-ed activist and he was imprisoned as a political prisoner between 1964 and 1971 so he was jailed for 7 years that's going to be important as we go through the poem and as I said he was a political prisoner so he was imprisoned for resisting the a parted regime so if we have a look at our title touch it's a very simple title Just One Singular word and that really makes us focus in on what this word not only denotes but what it also connotes so what are the connotations of touch and then we think when we think about touch we can think think about the positive connotations and the negative connotations if you think about touch in a positive manner you can think of touch as being loving caring it's how you express different kinds of love it is also a very important sort of human part of human development if you think about um you know when a baby is born doctors always advise parents to have skin and skin um skin-to skin contact with the with with newborns because it's a key part of our human development um it's a key sense it's one of our five senses but then on the other hand we can have very negative associations and connotations of touch it could be invasive it could be unwanted it can even be inhumane so just from this very simple title we're already thinking about all of these connotations of touch and how touch can be seen in these two polar opposite ways stanza one when I get out I'm going to ask someone to to touch me very gently please and slowly touch me I want to learn again how life feels so if we have a look at the stanza we start with when I get out so the use of when actually indicates this is an optimistic speaker he looks towards his future and the ending of his imprisonment so he doesn't say if he says when and when I get out we can understand he's writing from prison so he's in prison at the moment and he's dreaming about when he gets out I'm the use of I is this personal first person pronoun and this is important because it adds sincerity sincerity and authenticity to the poem he's going to ask someone look at the word someone it's not specific and this indicates which we're going to see coming up later again his sense of desperation for a positive form of human connection a positive form of touch he's going to ask someone anyone to touch me very gently pleasee and slowly the words gently and slowly are adverbs and this is showing us how he wants to be touched the use of please further emphasizes his desperation for a positive form of touch touch me do you notice there's a lot of repetition in this poem and here we see the first time this repeat the repetition of touch me emphasizes the sense of pleading this desperation um this py that he really desires to be touched in a positive way I want this is a really short line and I think that that goes to show um how he's trying to emphasize this is his deepest desire this is his his true want to learn again how life feels so now we get really quite serious and we get to understand how touch is not something just literal I mean we can understand to learn how life feels it's like literal feel someone's touch but actually we can understand this in a more figurative and deeper implied way is that positive touch is absolutely essential to actually living and enjoying life if we have a look at this stanza and the next stanza we're going to notice a lot of enjam a lot of runon lines also you should have noticed the indent and both of these things especially the enjam really emphasizes this sense of sincerity of honesty of reflection authenticity it's the speaker um is speaking Straight From the Heart so there's no like punctuation well there is some punctuation but it's not you know following conventional structuring of a poem or of typical writing because it's just WR it's just writing Straight From the Heart putting down thoughts on paper so we really have this understanding of this being a very authentic um experience or that he's trying to relate I always like to think of it like a like a diary entry like perhaps it's so authentic it's not even supposed to be read by anyone so it's just your thoughts you don't have to punctuate you don't have to use conventional strategies in terms of writing a full sentence then putting a full stop so you notice how the enjam just adds this layer of honesty to the reflection stanza two I've not been touched for seven years for seven years years I've been untouched out of touch and I've learned to now to know now the meaning of Untouchable so really interesting stanza that sets out this difference between the two kinds of touch or introduces this idea so I once again um it's this personal um pronoun being used and the use of the contraction just as it was in the first stanza it really adds as conversational tone um and in in the stanza I've actually highlighted not been touched untouched out of touch and Untouchable so all the times he references touch because they each signify something slightly different so not been touched um and untouched in a sort of very literal way he says that he has not been touched in a humane way so yes he's been touched as we're going to see in the next stanza but he's been touched in an inhumane way so here he's talking about he has not experienced positive form of touch in seven years the second and third line here for seven years for seven years this repetition emphasizes how long this period of isolation from Human contact has been and how he's thought about it every single day for those seven years out of touch now this this phrase out of touch we've heard this before so if you think about it in a literal sense he hasn't had access to positive touch he's been isolated but if you think about the expression that we use out of touch and what it is what its Association is it's that you're lacking an upto-date information or connections with the world and so this speaker because he's been in jail for 7 years and he hasn't had any positive connections positive Human Relationships he has been isolated he is lacking upto-date information he's lacking connection to the world and I've learned to know now the meaning Noti that in German once again this is showing the free expression of his thoughts to know the meaning of Untouchable so untouchable this is a really interesting word as you can see it's all variation of the things that we highlighted but Untouchable is the most severe out of all of them it means that no one can touch him his status in society is that of an undesirable his prisoner status is the lowest of lows he is an outcast a cast off so we can understand that he is Untouchable no one wants no one wants to build a human connection with him and how that is so dehumanizing so the different variations of not being touched emphasize the different aspects of Life which he is missing in his incarcerated State stanza 3 untouched not quite I can count the same things that have touched me so short stanza but a really important one so untouched and now we have a dash and this Dash denotes a shift and a further explanation to follow of how he's been untouched or in this case not quite he says I can count the things notice the harsh alliteration of the C Sound it's a cutting sound um and also notice if you are able to count something something it usually has a negative connotation if you're able to count how many times you've experienced this and this and this then it might have this negative connotation because you remember somehow we tend to like human bias we remember negative things you know more deeply than we sometimes remember positive things so both of these things together the alliteration and this idea of counting something um emphasize that this um that these things and we're going to talk about things as being he doesn't talk about humans he talks about things it suggests this inhumane treatment and so all of these different aspects emphasize that the way that he has been touched has given him or has yielded brutal scars so we understand that these things have not been a positive form of touch at all so he says he's been Untouched by positive touch but he hasn't been untouched entirely he's been touched by things by these cutting harsh s sounds can count these things these inhumane ideas or people who have touched him in this negative way stanza 4 One fists at the beginning Fierce mad fists beating beating till I remember screaming don't touch me please don't touch me so one here we are listing the forms he is listing the forms of abuse he has endured the colon indicates a of an explanation and in this instance um and the use of the word fists this is one of the things that have tort that have tortured him or that have touched him as he mentioned in the previous stanza but the diction is quite significant over here if you think of the connotations of fists we think of aggression we think of physical abuse and so we can understand by that the and do you see how he dehumanizing firstly because also fists are representative of people who actually are harm him right but by focusing on fist by focusing on the things he's emphasizing the inhumanity of this form of touch at the beginning so this is denoting when he first arrived to serve a sentence in jail Fierce mad fists so Fierce and fists we notice that alliteration and this alliteration um enhances the fierceness of the fists and the um ferociousness with which he is being hit and beaten the use of the word mad I always find this a really interesting word when it's used in poetry because it doesn't just denote something that's angry right but if you if there's a Madman what makes a Madman so dangerous is that they are unpredictable you don't know what to expect and so the use of the word mad he has connotations of angry but also unpredictable he doesn't know what's coming next fists notice how fists is being repeated this emphasizes that they are many fists that are and many punches that he is experiencing this line Fierce man fists is also an example of a transferred epithet a transferred epithet is typically when the epithet usually an adjective is transferred from one noun to another that's a very simple definition of what a transfer that is and so in this case we can see that the fist themselves are not actually mad it's impossible for the fists to be mad but it's actually referring the madness as referring to the prison Gods the people who are punching him but the use of the transit epithe emphasizes the ferociousness of the beating it's like the fists themselves are angry beating beating so this is a very simple line but really important the repetition shows how he's been pummeled by many fists and the ing indicates that these um and we're going to see it later as well if you skip a line to screaming so this ing shows that these um these words are in the present participle form so as um um the speaker is reflecting or as he reflects on this experience he's writing obviously um after having experien this but he's writing in the present he's writing as though it's continually happening to him right now to emphasize how painful the experience was he actually seems to feel the pain as he remembers it as he reflects on it till I remember the use of till is very colloquial once again it's like linked to that contraction this conversation tone it's very authentic and sincere speaker screaming so this word screaming is on a line all by itself so obviously it denotes that the speaker is in pain but isolated an isolated word on one line emphasizes how alone and isolated the speaker feels in his suffering and how he has no defense towards this beating other than to scream and what he screams is don't touch me notice how it starts as a demand it starts with that imperative do not touch me and then it goes in the next line please don't touch me then it turns into this plead this pleading this begging now for the opposite of stanza one stanza one he was saying please touch me please have this positive human connection now he's going the opposite he's begging to not be touched in this abusive way next stanza two pause the first four years of pause every day patting pause searching arms up shoes off legs apart prodding Paws systematic heavy indifferent probing away all privacy so two he's now listing the second thing that he says has harmed him or has touched him in prison and here we have paes and the use of paes um you know is a associated with animal imagery and this suggests that he's been treated perhaps like an animal in this inhumane way the first four years of pause so notice the alliteration of the F sound there there's a sense of painful Remembrance in his mind that's erupting to the surface um we also have then we go to the next line sorry oh the first four years that refers to the first four years of his imprisonment every day so every day this shows us that the prisoners are not trusted they are searched and demeaned every single day patting pause searching so patting paes this alliteration of the harsh posos of sound is very invasive there's a it indicates this lack of privacy and this intrusion searching notice the present participle once again he is being patted down and searched in an inhumane way this form of touch is undesired and demeaning to him and it's intended to be that way right by searching these prisoners every day the guards are ensuring that these these prisoners do not feel human that they feel like they have been seized of their dignity now we have this important parenthesis of these two um dashes arms up shoes off legs apart so parenthesis usually adds additional information in this case it's adding additional information of what the search involves the Que listing of these actions um or these commands show the the shouted sort of nature of these of the commands of the wardens of the Gods How They Don't Really Care they're just you know listing these commands at the prisoners prodding pause so once again the same note as we had for patting pause that alliteration of the PE sound systematic so this is referring to the entire prison system especially the searching it's systematic it's heavy it's indifferent so the touch is negative it is unfriendly it is lacking in any emotion it's just invasive there's no sense of care in prison probing away all privacy once again that alliteration of the PE sound and if you think about privacy um you know and having no privacy it's a very inhumane and undignified way to live um and it's I think it's maybe something that we don't always consider privacy as being part of you know Humanity um or being part of retaining your dignity but with this lack of privacy really alerts us to this um you know to the fact that this is a a right that's been taken away I don't want fists and Paws I want to want to be touched again and to touch I want to feel alive again I want to say when I get out here I am please touch me so I don't want fists and Paws this is a very sincere and honest statement these fists and paes are these things that he's been talking about and the connotations that we have just discussed I want do you see this py he has to want to be touched and here he has this repeated plea he also doesn't want to be traumatized by this negative touch he wants to he aches for positive touch and he wants to want to feel that he wants to be touched in positive humane way again so this shows us that he has had love in his life and before he went to prison so he remembers fondly what it was like and to touch so he himself wants to touch others he wants to build human connections with others he wants to be human he wants to be touched and to touch himself to touch as well I want to feel alive so feel this I think references his sort of mental health as well he wants to feel as though he's alive and so here we can understand he's equating touch with life so that's how important this sense is to him again he once was he once felt alive so there's a sense of loss that he's experienced in prison because he has lost this feeling of being alive I want to say when I get out so when he gets out of prison when he has his freedom and he ends off the last two lines with his Proclamation here I am please touch me in this positive way and ultimately he's asking let me live again so the structure of the poem or the form of the poem we saw there was a lot of enjam and there's a free verse the poem is free verse there's no set rhyme scheme um and these two ideas we spoke about them being showing the sort of free nature of thinking how he's just expressing his thoughts in this free um unencumbered manner but it also presents irony because the speaker is not free so as much as his writing seems to freely go go ahead without any sort of conventional boundary he himself is not free the short lines are fragmented there un there's an uneven flow the indents also add to this and this suggests this unsettling feeling throughout the poem and perhaps hints at the fact that he's not free and that he's struggling the tone of the poem can be described as desperate sincere pleading heartfelt honest the mood can be described as a mood of desperation a mood of longing the theme and message human connection physical touch and the different types of touch imprisonment and dehumanization what life truly means the list goes on thank you so much for watching I really hope that you found this video helpful please remember to like the video and to subscribe to the channel and I'll see you in the next video