Musee des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden combines two things I keep a special liking to, literature and visual arts (of which I am both a frustrated creator of). Although the combination of the works were inching more for the literature side since the poem used the Brueghel paintings to relay an imagery.
The first part of the poem uses the painting, Census of Bethlehem, which shows the apathethic-ness of people towards the birth of Jesus as shown in the painting. The second part pays homage to the Fall of Icarus. Both paintings pointed out how people can be uninvolved towards a happening even if it is current or urgent. I am not going to dwell more about the aesthetic of the paintings even if I did say I like to appreciate paintings, I'm afraid I'm not in a mood to do so right now. Instead, I would like to discuss the meaning of the poem and how it relates to life. In the same way, with the present-day problems the country or the world is experiencing, I myself have my fair share of wanting to do something significant in order for the circumstances to change. However, I feel like I can not do enough so it may look like I don't care about current events. I believe that in the last line of the poem it is relaying that life goes on and we can't help but be affected about small things or in this case, unaffected about overwhelming matters or vice versa.
Sunday 20 October 2013
Sunday 13 October 2013
Walking Around by Pablo Neruda
Pablo Neruda was able to explain the horrors of materialism, suburban living and the suffocating confines of the corporate world in his surreal poem, Walking Around. The first time I read it, I thought "hey it's about a man sick of life in general and shit he's walking around town to ponder" but turns out, it was something a bit more existential.
Pablo Neruda symbolised tailor shops and movie houses as a way for people to have fake appearances for something they are not. He was also able to point out that people were only after artificial matters nowadays thus we rely on it too much. Additionally, according to Neruda, politics and religion should be eliminated because it only causes greed and conflicts. Also, the corporate world, a matter Neruda (or at least the persona) feels strongly against, is highlighted by the lines "I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb, alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses, half frozen, dying of grief". Working in an office means you are always under somebody, working so hard but having the work credited for the higher people in the end. Working in an office signifies the death of being able to pursue your dreams, impossibility for intellectual growth to flourish since one is set out to focus on one specific job to accomplish. Such a waste of talent. The persona of the poem is frustrated because he wants to change how things work but higher things are working for such a system to continue.
Even before encountering this poem for class, I have decided that I would not like to work in an office for a living. I was able to see the effects of the corporate world to my parents, their friends, family members and even from the movies. I am a part of a younger generation with an idea of traveling, sleeping 'til the afternoon for less work hours, and being your own boss, as an ideal career in life.
Pablo Neruda symbolised tailor shops and movie houses as a way for people to have fake appearances for something they are not. He was also able to point out that people were only after artificial matters nowadays thus we rely on it too much. Additionally, according to Neruda, politics and religion should be eliminated because it only causes greed and conflicts. Also, the corporate world, a matter Neruda (or at least the persona) feels strongly against, is highlighted by the lines "I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb, alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses, half frozen, dying of grief". Working in an office means you are always under somebody, working so hard but having the work credited for the higher people in the end. Working in an office signifies the death of being able to pursue your dreams, impossibility for intellectual growth to flourish since one is set out to focus on one specific job to accomplish. Such a waste of talent. The persona of the poem is frustrated because he wants to change how things work but higher things are working for such a system to continue.
Even before encountering this poem for class, I have decided that I would not like to work in an office for a living. I was able to see the effects of the corporate world to my parents, their friends, family members and even from the movies. I am a part of a younger generation with an idea of traveling, sleeping 'til the afternoon for less work hours, and being your own boss, as an ideal career in life.
But really, no one is sure of the future anyway. What if, like all the other dreamers who had high hopes for their careers but failed to make it happen, I would be forced to work in an office as well?
The city, full of paradoxical beginnings and endings, is a hell where no one can completely escape out of in Neruda's opinion. It's awfully depressing of how true this situation is. We live on, encountering bones and decaying into bones ourselves, passing by office buildings and clothes lines. We are all trapped in the system.
The city, full of paradoxical beginnings and endings, is a hell where no one can completely escape out of in Neruda's opinion. It's awfully depressing of how true this situation is. We live on, encountering bones and decaying into bones ourselves, passing by office buildings and clothes lines. We are all trapped in the system.
Sunday 6 October 2013
Python in the Mall by Rolando S. Tinio
Python in the Mall was a really amusing poem that pays homage to an urban legend of a half-snake half-human that preys on beautiful girls in the fitting rooms of a certain department store in the Philippines. Rumour has it that the half-snake half-human creature is said to be a family member of the Gokongwei family whose names are popular for the Robinsons malls fortune.
I looked at of how easy it was to spread urban legends during this time in the 80s without the internet which was a free platform where everything can be accessed to be learned, published and speculated upon. It could either be that people were more gossipy or they were really just more gullible back then. During class, upon taking the poem up, we also discussed the dominant sound of the poem which is "S". This symbolises the hissing sound the snake makes. Later on I learned that it also relates to a business strategy.
Considering everything, I really think that sound is an important way to approach the readers by with the meaning of a poem. Also, urban legends are inevitable in a location where people utilise language, really. One way of looking at it is when people are bored enough, they have nothing better to do, that they want to make up myths in the populace, or when someone needs to divert a problem, etcetera.
I looked at of how easy it was to spread urban legends during this time in the 80s without the internet which was a free platform where everything can be accessed to be learned, published and speculated upon. It could either be that people were more gossipy or they were really just more gullible back then. During class, upon taking the poem up, we also discussed the dominant sound of the poem which is "S". This symbolises the hissing sound the snake makes. Later on I learned that it also relates to a business strategy.
Considering everything, I really think that sound is an important way to approach the readers by with the meaning of a poem. Also, urban legends are inevitable in a location where people utilise language, really. One way of looking at it is when people are bored enough, they have nothing better to do, that they want to make up myths in the populace, or when someone needs to divert a problem, etcetera.
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