The Island Within

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 2012

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Background

Literary Context

“The Island Within” is a poem that deals with themes of immigration, exile, and a lost homeland. Many of these kinds of poems also engage with topics like personal identity, personal history, and the refugee experience. “The Island Within” is one example of an American immigrant poem, like those that poet Li-Young Lee has also written. Li-Young Lee is an American poet who was born in Indonesia to exiled parents from China. He settled in the United States as a young child. When analyzing the literary context of “The Island Within,” looking to contemporaries also writing about exile, immigration, and identity can be illuminating.

The poems in this literary tradition often focus on the stories of individuals who have left their homelands, often for the United States. The writers of these poems and stories often employ two lenses that engage two worlds. These worlds consist of the one they call home, or, the world in which they were born or to which they are closely tied through immigrant parents, and a new world in which they find themselves trying to make a life, like America. The poems often incorporate two languages. Other themes sometimes present in these poems include homesickness, racism, and a hope of finding understanding.

Historical Context

The historical context of “The Island Within” is rooted in the experience of exile from Cuba. The poet Blanco was born to Cuban-exile parents in Madrid, Spain, and he did not visit Cuba until he was 28 years old. Blanco’s mother was seven months pregnant with Blanco when Blanco’s parents arrived in Spain as Cuban exiles (“Bio.” Richard Blanco). 45 days after Blanco’s birth, the family moved to the United States. Ruth Behar, on the other hand, was born in Havana, Cuba, and she moved to the United States when she was five (“Bio.” Ruth Behar.). Both share Cuban heritage gained primarily through their proximity to their parents, and “The Island Within” explores this shared cultural ancestry while seeking to understand what it means to be forced to leave a homeland.

This historical context of Blanco and Behar’s birth and upbringing is essential to understanding “The Island Within” in regards to their relationship to Cuba, their memories, and their concept of identity. The poem asks an essential question about birth and identity: if one is born in Cuba but leaves, is one still Cuban? What if one is born of Cuban parents abroad? These complicated questions drive Blanco’s poem and evoke intense emotion in the speaker, whose grasp of his own Cuban identity is elusive as his memories are “blanks” (Line 34) that the speaker tries again and again to remember.