Report To Wordsworth
By Boey Kim Cheng
Done by: Dylan and Rebecca
The poem
You should be here, Nature has need of you.
She has been laid waste. Smothered by the
smog,
the flowers are mute, and the birds are few
in a sky slowing like a dying clock.
All hopes of Proteus rising from the sea
have sunk; he is entombed in the waste
we dump. Triton’s notes struggle to be free,
his famous horns are choked, his eyes are
dazed,
and Neptune lies helpless as a beached
whale,
while insatiate man moves in for the kill.
Poetry and piety have begun to fail,
As Nature’s mighty heart is lying still.
Boey Kim Cheng’s
background
He was born in Singapore in 1965.
He now lives and works in Australia
with his wife.
He was inspired by Wordsworth
T.S. Elliot, Keats
Summary
The poet Kim Boey Cheng is trying to tell us that
Nature is in need of help.
he gives examples by using the environment as
prove what is happening to earth.
Like pollution, smog, flowers that cannot bloom
and birds that are dying.
He also tells us that poetry has failed to make us
realize our wrong doing.
He uses Greek and Roman mythology and goes
to the extend of telling us that even the gods are
trapped in the waste we dump.
Literary devices
Boey Kim Cheng uses literary devices to bring tone to
the poem
Personification
Simile
Alliteration
Metaphor
Imagery
Personification
In line three, “the flowers are mute” he uses
flowers to to convey a pitiful sense, like they
do not have a voice and is suffering in
silence.
There is irony here as well as flowers are
suppose to bloom which creates a sense of
joy and happiness but here he describes
them as gloomy and dull.
Personification
In line seven, “Triton’s notes struggle to be free”
he emphasizes on the amount of waste that we
dump, even a god is useless and helpless due
to mankind’s action. It is beyond his control. This
makes us realize our responsibility on Earth.
In the next line, “his famous horns are choked”
Boey uses Greek and Roman gods as allusions
to nature.
Simile
In line four, “slow like a dying clock” here Boey
uses a clock as time is very precious and he
wants us to remind us about Nature and not take
her for granted.
In line nine, “Neptune lies helpless as a beached
whale” a beached whale gives us a imagery of
death, as if nature is dying but it is a slow
process. This increases the effect of sympathy.
Alliteration
In line two, “Smothered by the smog”, the
alliteration has an effect that our air is
smothering us, which gives us a sense of
suffocation.
In line thirteen, “wound widening”, the
alliteration has a wailing effect which tells
readers the suffering the earth is facing.
Metaphor
In line thirteen, “O see the wound
widening in the sky” refers to the
hole in the ozone layer. It is also an
image that the world is hurt and in
pain because of the pollution we
cause which gives a feeling of guilt
and regret.
Imagery
In line four, Boey Kim Cheng uses an image of a
“dying clock” to express the idea of slow death
and also to show that time is running out for
people unless they change the way they live.
In line six, “he is entombed in the waste” this
image shows that destruction and waste is
everywhere around us. The word “entombed”
gives us a image of suffocation, this emphasizes
and reminds us of our responsibility to nature.
The image also lets readers sympathize the
state that nature is in.
Comparison to lament
Both poems deal with the theme of co-existence
of man and nature, and how human kind destroys
the environment.
In Lament, the poet Clarke is using the images of
dying, suffering animals to create empathy from
the reader. As animals are innocent and more
pure compared to us.
In Report to Wordsworth Boey uses the old,
Greek gods being helpless, looking at Earth with
no hope.
Comparison to lament
Like in Lament “For the cormorant in his funeral
silk” and “For the ocean’s lap with it’s mortal
stain” where she is creating a dark image for
both lines.
In Report to Wordsworth Boey is referring to
global warming in line thirteen “O see the
wound widening in the sky” where he describe
the destruction of the ozone layer.
Here both poems are similar as they both have
a dramatic and mysterious ending.
Comparison to lament
The fact that Boey refers to Greek and Roman
gods, and Clarke refers to the gulf war, brings
out the fact that both the West and the East are
causing damage, by fighting internally and with
each other.
Yet both poems manage to leave some
impression on the reader, as the reality is not
going to change, no matter how one portrays it.
Comparison to Flower-Fed
Buffalos
Both poets of “ Report to Wordsworth” and “The
Flower-Fed Buffaloes” portray nature in their
poems. But both poems consist of the change of
Earth.
Vachel Lindsay talks about the approaching of
modernization and its wreckage to the
buffaloes. Boey Kim Cheng is raising
awareness about the destruction of nature by
man.
The tone in “The Flower-Fed Buffaloes” is
sadness and nostalgic and in “ Report to
Comparison to Flower-Fed
Buffalos
In Flower-Fed Buffaloes writes “Wheels
and wheels and wheels spin by” to show
that humans have brought the trains and
disrupted the peace. This also gives an
image that nature is being trampled over
and over again.
Similarly, Boey Kim Cheng writes about
the after effects of humans disturbing
nature. “She has been laid waste” shows
that humans have destroyed the Mother
nature.