Essay about Chord Singapore

Submitted By Ch121st
Words: 1398
Pages: 6

Romanticism in Poems
Most of the poems that I read had thousands of pretty words in them. No matter what theme they had, the realities behind the topic were always clothed in many lovely lines. Romanticism is like an inseparable part of poetry and it seems to be one of many things that give identity to it.
Romanticism does have quite an impact for the reader, but it really does affect the interpretation of a poem and it might lead to further philosophical journey of a story and meaning. Many poets have their own way of writing and even though often times they are writing about same things, the difference in their style and romanticism are actually pretty exciting to see and even compare because each one is unique and actually shows the poet identity. With that being said, in this paper I will compare two works of two famous American poets and try to point out the similarity and differences in their writing.
The first one is W.S. Merwin. He is a well-known American poet who is known for his deep ecology that influenced his writing. He has written many poems and is well known for his writings about Vietnam War, in this paper, I will specifically analyze his writing titled “Chord”.
The second one would be Mary Oliver. Also a well-known American poet and has won many awards and she has written a lot of poems with many themes including nature and humanity, but I will specifically talk about her poem titled “Singapore”.
First of all, I will discuss W.S. Merwin’s poem, “Chord”. “Chord” itself is a writing about nature and focused on nature’s destruction by human. Humans are destructive and greedy creatures by nature. Many would justify this nature of humans by saying that it is needed in order to survive. In this poem, it seemed that W.S. Merwin is telling us that deforestation and destruction of nature by human will never ends. In the poem, it is portrayed that whenever this man does something, a part of forest is gone and torn at the same time. In the second line of the poem, it is shown that this man is also a part of the woodcutters group that had working and probably has been drowning himself in remorse over what he had done to nature in the past.
The poem itself is really explicit in terms of showing the feeling of the man. The remorse he had for himself and hatred over his kind is shown on the line that says, “while he felt his heart they were hungry and their faith was sick.” This line could also be seen as Merwin’s attempt to remind others about humans’ destructive nature and its consequences.
While this poem has strong emphasis on deforestation and destruction of nature by human, it is also shown that humans also create destruction among themselves. The greediness that is not satisfied by chopping wood and destroying forest for a building has turn into bloodlust. “”When he lay with the odes behind him the wood was sold for cannons.” strongly implies that human creates war for themselves. They not only compete for their so-called survival with nature, but also other human beings.
The feeling of the author that shows how humans destroy nature, ecosystems, and ultimately themselves is really prominent. Merwin shows that humans are really loathsome creatures that should learn to control themselves. His poem shows how human could get carried away so easily and forgot about other beings. On the other, hand, this poem also a reminder of what a future of humanity would be if things continues like this. It will be full of remorse, regret, and hatred.
The wording he used in this poem is really a bit confusing, especially for a person like me who did not grow up learning English as my native language. While the topic and the feeling are really clear and easily conveyed, it really takes time to really extract the story behind the poem.
It is interesting how he used repetition and comparing two things that sometimes did not really have any connection to one another in each line. His way of writing in this poem is actually hard to