Flag explores how national symbols blind nations together – and in doing so also force people apart.
Flag is written in a tight, regular form. It has 5 stanzas, each with three lines. The middle line of each stanza is shorter than the other two. The form therefor mimics the shape of an old medieval flag. The three lines are like the three stripes of many national flags today.
The poem is built around a conversation between two voices- one that asks the child – like questions of each opening stanza ; the other perhaps agard himself, who responds in the next two lines. In the first four stanzas the response is the same, with the line “its just a peice of cloth” echoing throughout the poem.
The first sound is the rise and fall of the question and answer : The voice naturally rises at the beggining of each stanza with the question, only to be bought down with poets clear simple answer.
Another important contrast is in the soft sounds of the flag (“fluttering”, “unfurling”, “rising” “flying “). These are drowned out by the short sharp, hard sounds that are emphasised by the use of alliteration : ” nation/knees”.
The poem yellow flag is written in the form of a ballad. This is a traditional form of popular song that would have been sung or recited by wandering storytellers of the past. Ballads use a strong rhythm and rhyme-scheme to tell stories about everyday people.
Minhinnick tells us about the everyday lives of the people in this street. What he has to say, however, is not something to celebrate. The lively rhymes contrast with the content.
The poem uses contrast to show the tensions that exist in the country. The contrasts also express the mixed feelings the poet has about the city.
The first contrast is with the title and the repeated opening line. The Yellow Palm suggests something exotic, colourful and delicious (dates, the fruit of the palm, are deliciously sweet). The street itself, however, is a scene of decay and destruction.
The images that open the verses at first seem colourful slices of life (the colourful local funeral with “women waving lilac stems”). At closer inspection, however, these images suddenly come into sharper focus: the dead man was gassed (by Saddam).
The triple rhyme scheme gives the poem energy. It therefore reflects the energy of the street. The positive and negative rhymes (e.g. pass-gas) express the way this once beautiful society has been torn apart.
In the last stanza, though, the feeling of hope and harmony is expressed through the repetition of positive rhymes: “palms”, “salaams” and “arms”. Minhinnick hopes that when the child grows up, it can return to being the busy normal market street it once was.