Truth in Poetry

Why A Man Cannot Have Wings  by Alfian Sa'at

Because he will crash land on his head, assuming it to be
The strongest part of his body.

Because someone will put up a sign that reads:
Do Not Step on the Cirrus Clouds.

Because it does not even take a man hundreds of feet above
Sea-level to learn contempt.

Because there will be new categories of handicaps: bow-wings,
Ostrich disease, scaly feathers, carousel flight syndrome,
Or at a freak show: The Amazing Wingless Wonder.

Because he will have a new weapon, gravity,
And everything he releases becomes a missile,
Even glass marbles, books, the fatal music box.

Because he is lonely enough without being able to
Frame the house he lives in between his forefinger and thumb.

Because then the sky will shed its metaphors of freedom
And become another path for him to carry his burdens.

Because there will be a popular form of suicide:
Flying into foreign airspace and being gunned down;
All it takes is a nose-tip to press an invisible blue button.

Because each death in mid-air, each comic comet plunge, 
Will be another enactment of the fall of Man.

Because in concentration camps people will break wings
And use the feathers for quills to write sonnets
And pillow stuffing for innocent dreams.

Because he will have less to fantasize about, less of miracles
And the word 'levitation' will not exist.

Because there will be children who will empty their bladders
Under cloud cover in an attempt to make yellow snow.

And because he might get the wrong notion that he is closer
To heaven, when he has not even come to a mile
Within the presence of angels, despite the resemblance.

On a separate Shakespearean topic...

Dear Students,

Having to explain the difference between chauvinism and misogyny in class today got me thinking about a common Shakespeare misquote:

"Frailty, thy name is Woman."

which is often misquoted as 

"Woman, thy name is Frailty"

Can you see the difference? The former (the correct quote) is Hamlet's impassioned lament over the ever-changing nature of women (his father had died and his mother married his uncle!) whereas the latter (common misquoted) is pretty much chauvinistic, with a hint of misogyny. 

So, quote your Shakespeare accurately!

Every year, we pass the day of our death anniversary unknowingly

For the Anniversary of My Death

BY W. S. MERWIN

Every year without knowing it I have passed the day   

When the last fires will wave to me 

And the silence will set out 

Tireless traveler 

Like the beam of a lightless star 

Then I will no longer 

Find myself in life as in a strange garment 

Surprised at the earth 

And the love of one woman 

And the shamelessness of men 

As today writing after three days of rain 

Hearing the wren sing and the falling cease 

And bowing not knowing to what

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/

Such a lovely, morbid, introspective and beautiful poem all at once. This is only possible and achievable in poetry.

“Something, someone, some spirit was pursuing all of us across the desert of life and was bound to catch us before we reached heaven. Naturally, now that I look back on it, this is only death: death will overtake us before heaven. The one thing that we yearn for in our living days, that makes us sigh and groan and undergo sweet nauseas of all kinds, is the remembrance of some lost bliss that was probably experienced in the womb and can only be reproduced (though we hate to admit it) in death.”

- Jack Kerouac, On the Road

Behind Every Villain Stands Someone Complicit

Dear Students,

Here is a supplementary article for "The Shooting Ranch" by Wena Poon which will supplement your understanding of how being a silent bystander makes you complicit to someone's wrong-doing. This article also serves to enforce the idea of how while Nancy is a passive enabler of Henry's abuse by their inaction, Cynthia and Anouk are also complicit to Henry's crime, thus condoning his behaviour and actions.

Behind Every Villain Stands Someone Complicit

The Inaugural Post - The World's most misunderstood poem

The Road Not Taken

BY ROBERT FROST

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken

Students, have you ever heard someone say something along the lines of "I took the road less travelled!" or read about someone taking "the road less travelled" - a metaphor for doing something that is not the "norm"? It all sounds very cool, doesn't it?  

Well, this poem seems to sum this all up - taking the road less travelled. Being the special one, the different one, the unique one...etc. At least that is how everyone seems to be interpreting it. This is NOT what the poem is about, hence earning itself the reputation of being the world's most misunderstood poem.

The poem is often synonymous with "the road less travelled". 

However, carefully look at the title of the poem - "The Road Not Travelled". It is NOT entitled "The Road Less Travelled".  One word makes all the difference!

Carefully read the poem and you will realise that the speaker laments his decision of not taking the other option ("road") and how he had no plans to, because he " doubted if [he] should ever come back". 

He knows that many years down the road, he would telling a story("telling this with a sigh"- a sigh because it may not be the truth?) about taking the less travelled road because it is exciting. It is so glamorous to be different from every one else! However, reality is such that one can only make the decision to travel down one road, not both, as there just isn't enough time or energy to do so. And the less glamorous truth is, the speaker has observed that the other road has been "worn...really about the same" and "that morning equally lay". It really isn't less travelled, it is equally travelled by other travellers! There is no less travelled road at all. There is no difference. But there is no harm in embellishing the truth, just a little!

So, yes, the poem is really not about taking the road less travelled, but about a beaten, jaded old man who is lying about himself taking the road less travelled (being different) because it will make him seem way more interesting than he really is. And, perhaps, the irony of life is that in striving so hard to be different, every one is the same! (I mean, who wants to be like everyone else?)