He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven’s embroided cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I’ll spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

-William Butler Yeats
___________________________________________________

If there’s a love poem that will capture my heart, it is this. Issues of sincerity aside, one has to admit that the octave is immediately captivating. Here ‘the blue and the dim and the dark’ firmaments are likened to ‘embroidered cloths’, upon which the diaphanous ‘golden’ sunlight and ‘silver’ moonbeams are weaved. Evoking images of wonderfully precious Persian tapestry, the narrator’s generous offer to lay such beauty at his lover’s feet is seductive; but when, on account of his poverty, he offers his dreams in place of such wonder, one cannot help but be filled with rapture. The smooth iambic pentameter of the poem contributes to its lucid beauty, enriching the idea of the narrator’s all encompassing, undying devotion. Even what would have been mundane repetitions are transformed into ardent reiteration of affection. Internal rhymes like ‘Of night and light and the half-light’ lend a sense of fantastical mystery that embodies the narrator’s unfading love. In particular, I am ensnared by the image of “half-light” which makes me think of an ever receding horizon that marks the interminable growth of adoration. With someone baring his soul and laying his love at your feet, I believe one must have a wooden heart not to have it melt before this poem.

This poems has been set to art song. Here's a sample - Cloths of Heaven

Anon.

Twenty Something

This book by Iain Hollingshead is a good laugh. (Not in the bad sense..) His debut novel, Twenty Something is about an unfulfilled twenty-something who's had it with his dead end job (as a banker) and wants to have it out with the world. Male 'chick lit' has been an up-and-coming genre, especially in the comedic circuits, and while it doesn't quite compare with Mike Gayle and Matt Dunn, it is after all a good attempt at converting journalistic experience to humour writing.

The book starts off a tad desperate, with Hollingshead trying too hard to evoke comic effect. Most debut novels do, after all. (Apart from Best Man, Matt Dunn) Hollingshead gets into the swing of things and novel-writing in the second half of the book, the considerably better half, where he starts writing in a letter-email medium, as compared to the diary medium in the first half (a shameless rip off bridget jones and adrian mole, non?). The main problem with the initial chapters lies in the fact that Hollingshead has not fully established his characters, and immediately jumps into their personal lives, expecting the reader to catch up as an accidental observer who happened into Jack Lancaster's life. A good novel should always have some buildup into the main plotline (assuming there's one), but one can't overdo it too, like in To Kill A Mockingbird where the initial chapters seem to exist chiefly for soporific effect.

The rude letters and emails and the rampant anti-establishment vibe is a huge cliche, but at least they are well-crafted - if nothing else, the packaging of a load of bollocks is important, to disguise the said load of bollocks. And he does it well too, being rude seems to be a huge talent. The plot turn at the end seems to be taking the cliche a tad too far, where young Lancaster takes over his father's job at a prep school in England, teaching French to ten year olds. The new academic, boys school atmosphere has been cooked to carbon, in Dead Poets' Society, in Dahl's Boy, in the Freedom Writers, etc.

Favourite characters include the wiley Mr. Cox, whose use of Latin in every two sentences (primitive Latin, should I say) builds him up as the stuck-up, ostentatious bourgeoisie who buys his way into anything and everything. His son's learning of Latin vulgarities (chip off the old block) is a good parallel, especially in the prep school setting. All in all, it is a feel-good book, one that reiterates social norms for seemingly no reason at all. If the humour isn't lost on you, you might enjoy it very much. (I did.)

Anon.

Self-Made Man

What shall become of the eternal battle between the sexes? In this controversial monograph, Norah Vincent crosses gender boundaries delineated in culture to discover how exactly it feels to be a white American male. Going a year and half under the persona of Ned, Vincent infiltrated the inner circles of masculinity by passing off in strip clubs, bowling leagues and even in a monastery.

The end product is a compelling account of her journey from the day she first put on her synthetic stubble to her eventual psychological break down. Told in a humorous and casual manner, the reader is quickly absorbed into her adventure – not simply because of the novelty, but also because of the intimacy involved.

Although her experiences were for the most part singular (and she admits it), many of her observations are in fact ubiquitous. “I passed in a man’s world not because my mask was so real, but because the world of men was a masked ball,” noted Vincent in retrospect; and, indeed, who can deny that much of male interaction is subdued by a psyche steeped in egoistic pride? But more important than the observations were the questions brought about. Beyond examining masculinity, Vincent also looks at gender as a whole. Ruminating over how many individuals are beleaguered by unnecessary gender stereotypes, she questions “whether is isn’t almost as impossible for any of us to treat each other gender neutrally as it is to conceptualize language without grammar.”

Ultimately, even Vincent admits that she will never know how it feels to be a man; but her experience has taught her to accept men’s idiosyncrasies with understanding and sympathy, and to appreciate being comfortable with her own gender. Call it immoral, call it a publicity stunt, still one cannot deny the contribution Norah Vincent has made to gender studies by disinterring the sensitive, and often politically incorrect, issues she did.

ww

Watch the ABC news report here.

ww

Anon

When we were orphans

Kazuo Ishiguro's expressive manipulation of the English language captivates once again with this crime fiction novel. Unlike other famous Japanese authors (i.e. Haruki Murakami and the like) whose books are translated by Jay Rubin/Alfred Birnbaum, Ishiguro spent the bulk of his life in England, shading his language with its own enigmatic twist. His expressions are not exotic per se, rather, concise, with comfortable fluency and laidback diction.

This book is about Christopher Banks, a famed detective who delves into the nebula that was his childhood in order to resurrect the shadows of his vanished parents. There is a fine balance of relations between the Chinese, the Japanese, and the British, as events such as the Opium trade and the Sino-Japanese war are explored in the midst of the mystery. Ishiguro weaves the upper echelon of society together with its depraved, lurid past in a delightful rally of flashbacks and narratives.

There are certain subplots which seem to be thoughtlessly thrown together to add to the mystique of the storyline as a whole, and this is easily perceived by leaps in hastily constructed logic, and over-convenient factoids that artificially slide into place. Military skirmishes are handled amateurishly and Christopher's language is pompous at times (as is characteristic of most of Ishiguro's narrators) but this is used to enhance his distorted view of the Japanese invasion.

Nevertheless, this book handles the themes of powerlessness and self-righteousness admirably and remains a haunting read.

Anon.

The laws of God, the laws of man

The laws of God, the laws of man.
He may keep that will and can;
Now I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man’s bedevilment and God’s?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong,
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn or Mercury
Keep we must, if keep we can
These foreign laws of God and man.

by Alfred Edward Housman
___________________________________________________

Near the end of his life, the austere A.E. Housman started to tackle in his poetry the one subject he had long avoided – his homosexuality. Published together with several others of similar concern in Last Poems, this particular poem illuminates Housman’s irreconcilable indignity towards civil and ecclesiastical legislations that forced him to suppress his innate inclinations.

Much as it is about his homosexuality, this poem encompasses all forms of alienation one may experience; it serves well as a mantra for those who feel beleaguered by the mainstream society, which I believe to be everyone from time to time. Removed of any ornate allusions or mind-boggling conceits, the poem’s clean and lucid language keeps its case conspicuous. Its raw and deeply emotional use of words displays the poet’s acute anger in full force, much to the contrast of the ironically comfortable iambic tetrameter the lines are set in.

Perhaps the most quotable line, “I, a stranger and afraid / In a world I never made” best epitomizes the pariah-mentality held by many. An escapist cowardice at worst, it reminds us that everyone is in a way or another a lonely sojourner of society. In a world of victims, why make life difficult for others and yourself?

Yet far from being deluded and contrary to stereotype, Housman does not wallow in self-pity; his life of strict principalities is reflected in the conclusion. Admitting that one cannot be the omnipotent despot Saturn was or flee this world upon the swift wings of Mercury, his last couplet imbues in his “foreign laws” a strength and commitment that springs from the tenacity of will and belief.

Anon.

Flatland

In this speculative satire, we see the wedding of geometry and Victorian society, one that spawns a series of philosophical questions regarding the knowledge of truth. Edwin A. Abbott spins a beautiful critique of Victorian practices and ideology based on a two-dimensional world in this book, where one's class increases with the number of edges/sides he possesses, stupidity varies inversely with the degree of an isosceles' apex, irregularity is not tolerated, and women are condemned to exist as straight lines, in despised servitude to their polygonal male counterparts.

The square covers several social practices that persist in present-day circumstances (however deep-seated and obscure they may be), such as the practice of sight-recognition amongst the members of Flatland in discerning squares from pentagons, equilateral triangles from isosceles triangles, and so forth. This parallels the obsession with class superiority and ascent in the Victorian era. Abbott also questions phrenology and physiognomy - the superficial equation of one's outer appearances with his intellect and morality. Irregular triangles are assumed to be a morally degenerate caste, either condemned to mutual murder or to be used as teaching examples in Flatland's elementary schools. Another point of contention in Flatland is that of misogyny; females are relegated to a purely domestic arena due to their affectations and presumed inability to reason or rationalise. The naturalness of such discrimination is dredged up and brought under public scrutiny in this novella, as Abbott, an ardent advocate for female education, sought to correct the misguided precepts of his era.

All this is done methodically, as he gradually builds upon his argument against solipsism, first with the Square's interactions with members of Lineland, then Pointland, and finally Spaceland. In the second part of his novella, he proves our incapacity to attain a complete knowledge of truth because of the fact that one's perceptions are but a framed slice of reality. With the enlightenment of higher dimensions, the Square finds society unreceptive to such transcendental information and basically resistant to reform.

In this semi-mathematical work, it is perhaps apt that Abbott describes the nature of Flatland and its inhabitants in a point-by-point analysis that comprises 12 short chapters. The structure of his argument for the fallibility of human perceptions is admirable in its system, much like the unravelling of a mystery. Also memorable is the cliff-hanger with which the theory of higher dimensions is concluded (or unconcluded). Space-Time, the tesseract, and similar abstract concepts of transcendental geometry which elude understanding are given a wide berth for development, one which several authors have courageously entered and taken the liberty to expound upon. Sphereland (Dionys Burger), Flatterland (Ian Stewart), and Spaceland (Rudy Rucker) validate this claim.

Flatland can be found in Borders' Literature section.

Anon.

A Valentine

For her this rhyme is penned, whose luminous eyes,
ssBrightly expressive as the twins of Leda,
Shall find her own sweet name, that nestling lies
ssUpon the page, enwrapped from every reader.
Search narrowly the lines!- they hold a treasure
ssDivine- a talisman- an amulet
That must be worn at heart. Search well the measure-
ssThe words- the syllables! Do not forget
The trivialest point, or you may lose your labor
ssAnd yet there is in this no Gordian knot
Which one might not undo without a sabre,
ssIf one could merely comprehend the plot.
Enwritten upon the leaf where now are peering
ssEyes scintillating soul, there lie perdus
Three eloquent words oft uttered in the hearing
ssOf poets, by poets- as the name is a poet's, too,
Its letters, although naturally lying
ssLike the knight Pinto- Mendez Ferdinando-
Still form a synonym for Truth- Cease trying!
ssYou will not read the riddle, though you do the best you can do.

Edgar Allan Poe
___________________________________________________

A simple ditty it contrives to be
But deciphering is far from easy,
So as to aid you in your endeavour
I offer these clues, please read them over:

If one is one, then two is two,
This follows on, until you’re through;
To discover what it entails,
Scan through the poem’s finest details.
From line to line you should proceed
Up till the end, where it shall read
The name of the poet’s love and friend,
A poet herself; and hence the end.

Once you are through with this Sphinx’s riddle
Fry yourself an egg upon the griddle.
Congratulations, for you have survived
And its arcane answer you have derived,
But to enjoy the ultimate pleasure
Reread the poem in peace and leisure
And you shall find joy and satisfaction
In the wittiness of its creation.

Anon.

I am the only being whose doom

I am the only being whose doom
No tongue would ask no eye would mourn
I never caused a thought of gloom
A smile of joy since I was born

In secret pleasure – secret tears
This changeful life has slipped away
As friendless after eighteen years
As lone as on my natal day

There have been times I cannot hide
There have been times when this was drear
When my sad soul forgot its pride
And longed for one to love me here

But those were in the early glow
Of feelings not subdued by care
And they have died so long ago
I hardly now believe they were

First melted off the hope of youth
Then Fancy’s rainbow fast withdrew
And then experience told me truth
In mortal bosoms never grew

‘Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere –
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there

Emily Jane Brontë

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When a poem has affected one’s life like this had on me, it is impossible to take it apart and analyse it. It has become a part of my very existence and can only be understood as a whole. Although it is no Nobel material, it spoke to me in my most desperate times. Now, let it speak to you too.

Anon.

A Calendar of Sonnets: January

O winter! frozen pulse and heart of fire,
What loss is theirs who from thy kingdom turn
Dismayed, and think thy snow a sculptured urn
Of death! Far sooner in midsummer tire
The streams than under ice. June could not hire
Her roses to forego the strength they learn
In sleeping on thy breast. No fires can burn
The bridges thou dost lay where men desire
In vain to build.
--------------------O Heart, when Love's sun goes
To northward, and the sounds of singing cease,
Keep warm by inner fires, and rest in peace.
Sleep on content, as sleeps the patient rose.
Walk boldly on the white untrodden snows,
The winter is the winter's own release.

Helen Hunt Jackson

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The first thing that strikes me is the use of run-on lines. I find it particularly irritating when a poet uses excessive run-on lines in a form which involves a regular rhyme and rhythmic scheme; a sonnet, especially, does not deserve such treatment.

There are several kinds of pauses in a poem: the first kind is one that stems from the use of punctuations, which I would call auditory stop; the next kind is visual, the most obvious being found in a line break. The fact that the eye has to reset to the left side of the page means that the mind naturally registers a pause, and any reading (silent or otherwise) will pause at least slightly upon seeing a line break.

Here, the placement of visual pauses works to the poem's detriment. I bring up the particularly poisonous example of "thy snow a sculptured urn / Of death!”; because of the language, the reader's mind naturally registers a pause at "sculptured urn". However, on reading the next line, the reader finds that it is, after all, a run-on line, ending in nothing less than an exclamation mark! Obviously, the break is very unnatural. In addition, since one tends to mentally end the sentence at "urn", the result may be one reading out "and think thy sculptured snow a sculptured urn. Of death!". Worse, the sentence ends on the first iamb of the next line! In the use of the iambic pentameter, the mind naturally breaks the five iambs into two and three iambs, and less often into three and two iambs. Breaking up the five iambs into one and four iambs hurts the flow even more.

However, the poem is, rhythmically speaking, not past redemption. More specifically, the ending sestet is very nice. "To northward, and" breaks the line into two and three iambs, which flows better. Most lines end in either a comma or a full stop, allowing for the coincidence of a visual and an auditory pause, and in the previous example, a language-based pause.

As for other points of the poem, I particularly like the last line, as it contains repetition and an internal rhyme, two things befitting an obsessive form as the sonnet. The alliteration with the previous line doesn't hurt either. In fact, the sestet is rife with alliteration and repetition, taking for example the sibilance in "sounds of singing cease", and "sleep on content, as sleeps". All of these give a nice effect of focus, a concentrating of energy on a message or subject, and a mental buildup to a conclusion.

That is all. I have nothing to say about the actual content of the poem.

This article is contributed by Derrick Ng