Anthology Part 2 poems: Out, Out- and An Unknown Girl

A boy is cutting wood with a buzz saw on a farm in rural New England, with a view of mountains stretching 'far into Vermont'. When his sister calls him for supper, the saw seems to leap at his hand. He begs that his hand should not be cut off, but the doctor puts him under anaesthetic and he dies. The people around him go back to their lives.
Title: an allusion to Macbeth's 'Out, out, brief candle!', a speech about how short and meaningless life can seem.
Methods: blank verse in one long stanza, like a story told without a pause; personification of the saw, which 'snarled'; the beautiful mountain view contrasted with the violence; a shockingly calm ending: 'And they, since they / Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.'

Alvi was born in Pakistan and grew up in England. In the poem, the speaker sits in a busy evening bazaar in India while a girl she does not know decorates her hand with henna in the pattern of a peacock.
The speaker feels a strong, temporary connection to the girl and to the country. She knows the henna will fade once she is back in England, but she longs to belong. The title is ambiguous: the 'unknown girl' is the henna artist, but may also suggest a part of the speaker herself.
Methods: free verse with short lines, the present tense, bright images of neon light and colour, repetition of the girl being unknown, and the henna as a symbol of a cultural identity that is beautiful but fragile. (In copyright: described, not quoted.)