This question is based on NEW TONGUE. What does the poem suggest about memory and the past?

Answer Details

"New Tongue" explores the tension between adopting a new language and retaining one's original cultural identity. The poem suggests that the past holds identity and should not be erased.

Memory and the past, in this poem, are repositories of identity: they contain the traditions, experiences, stories, and cultural markers that define who a person or a people are. A new language may be necessary for navigating the present, but if the past is erased in the process, the speaker's sense of self is lost along with it. The poem treats memory not as baggage or obstruction but as the foundation upon which identity stands.

The other readings do not hold. The poem does not advocate rewriting the past (which would distort identity rather than preserve it). It does not present the past as a mere burden (it treats the past as something valuable). And it certainly does not dismiss memory as irrelevant to progress (the entire poem insists on the opposite).