GCSE Anthology Poems from Different Cultures Cluster 1

Night of the Scorpion
Told from the point of view of a child, describing the night
their mother was stung by a scorpion.
Set in a close-knit village community in poor, rural India.
The scorpion is given a personality – it comes in to
shelter from the rain.
The villagers react in very different ways – most of them
panic or say prayers, the father tries various medicines,
and a holy man tries a spell.
In the end, the sting was harmless. The mother is
grateful her children weren’t t stung.
The poem tells us a lot about the culture of these people.