It took me quite a long time to decide the topic of this profolio whihc is about TRAVEL, a very broad one. The interesting thing about it is that most of the poems are not about travelling, they always tend to imply something else. It can be about dilemma, homesickness, identity or the meaning of life. People go on travelling to move, to isolate, to freshen up, to experience, to contemplate ... We probably know more about ourself and the world around us better after travelling. Maybe that is why people always say you should go travelling more when you are young. Because when you get older, you think you know yourself and the world enough that you need not expose to new things anymore. I remember a conversation between me and my mum weeks ago.
'What is your dream place of travelling, mum?'
' No. I do not like travelling. Hong Kong is good enough for me.'
'But you have never been to any place outside Hong Kong, how can you be sure about that?'
'I just know it.'
I am wondering that if I would have the exact answer answer when I get old. Anyway, at this moment, just enjoy =]
Friday, 23 April 2010
The Checklist
Natalie Tam
Waiting for the Great Geyser to hurl the boiling water,
they bend and gape in the cool tense air.
Counting second by second, they are expecting amazement,
of the violence of nature.
Eruption, and exclamation.
Beside ‘witnessing something majestic’,
they can proudly put a tick.
Imagine lying on the Salar De Uyuni in Bolivia,
the world’s largest mirror made of crystal,
You are stunned by the spectacular reflection.
I wonder what’s behind the astonishment though.
Beside ‘seeing a true reflection of yourself’
Can you proudly put a tick?
(2010)
This poem was inspired by Questions of Travel when I started contemplating the true meaning of travelling.
Waiting for the Great Geyser to hurl the boiling water,
they bend and gape in the cool tense air.
Counting second by second, they are expecting amazement,
of the violence of nature.
Eruption, and exclamation.
Beside ‘witnessing something majestic’,
they can proudly put a tick.
Imagine lying on the Salar De Uyuni in Bolivia,
the world’s largest mirror made of crystal,
You are stunned by the spectacular reflection.
I wonder what’s behind the astonishment though.
Beside ‘seeing a true reflection of yourself’
Can you proudly put a tick?
(2010)
This poem was inspired by Questions of Travel when I started contemplating the true meaning of travelling.
Advice to the Good Traveler
Victor Segalen
A town at the end of the road & a road extending
a town: do not choose one or the other, but
one & the other by turns.
A mountain encircling your gaze confines &
contains it, as a round plain frees it. Love to
leap rocks & steps; but caress the flagstones
where the foot lands squarely.
Retreat from sound in silence, &, from silence,
deign to return to sound. Alone, if you can,
if you know how to be alone, pour yourself
sometimes into the crowd.
Beware of choosing a refuge. Do not believe in
the virtue of a virtue that lasts: break it
with some strong spice that burns & bites
& gives a taste even to blandness.
Thus, without stopping or stumbling, without
halter & without stable, without rewards
or punishments, you will attain, friend, not
the marsh of immortal joys,
But the intoxicating eddies of the great river
Diversity.
A town at the end of the road & a road extending
a town: do not choose one or the other, but
one & the other by turns.
A mountain encircling your gaze confines &
contains it, as a round plain frees it. Love to
leap rocks & steps; but caress the flagstones
where the foot lands squarely.
Retreat from sound in silence, &, from silence,
deign to return to sound. Alone, if you can,
if you know how to be alone, pour yourself
sometimes into the crowd.
Beware of choosing a refuge. Do not believe in
the virtue of a virtue that lasts: break it
with some strong spice that burns & bites
& gives a taste even to blandness.
Thus, without stopping or stumbling, without
halter & without stable, without rewards
or punishments, you will attain, friend, not
the marsh of immortal joys,
But the intoxicating eddies of the great river
Diversity.
Questions of Travel
Elizabeth Bishop
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:
"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
This poem describes the wonderful things that one can see and hear along a Brazilian highway. She brings up a lot of questions that travelers in an alien landscape will probably ask in the second stanza. The poem then ends with speculations about the decisions we make to explore nature and the world.
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
--For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
--Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
--A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
--Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages.
--Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
--And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:
"Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there . . . No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?"
This poem describes the wonderful things that one can see and hear along a Brazilian highway. She brings up a lot of questions that travelers in an alien landscape will probably ask in the second stanza. The poem then ends with speculations about the decisions we make to explore nature and the world.
The Vegetable Air
Cathy Song
You’re clean shaven in this country
where trees grow beards of moss,
where even bank tellers
look a little like banditos
in vests as pungent as sweatsuits.
Still, you prefer the vegetable air
to almost any other place on the map.
After the heart attack,
you considered Paris—
the flying buttresses,
the fractured light of its cathedrals;
the entire city refined and otherworldly,
ascending on its architectural wings—
but decided you had no use for glory,
boulevards fur-lined
with statues and expensive trees.
You admit, on the whole,
the towns in this country are ugly.
One summer you drove toward Nicoya
(a beautiful name that became your destination),
expecting a fragrant town of mango trees
but found cattle grazing in the plaza,
rattling the tin plates
in the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant.
A Coca-Cola sign hung weathered and askew.
That’s perhaps why you like it,
it’s a country you can’t count on,
a country of misfits.
Unable to take root in the mud,
the twentieth century has failed miserably,
creating neither factory nor industry
but a thirst for soda pop;
like cosmetic surgery,
it is skin deep.
The clock is stuck in the rain
and the mud of four o’clock.
There’s nothing to do but wait as if
in a dry cave, a room with a view of the waterfall,
pinned as you are beneath the downpour.
The waiter bends over your cup
without filling it,
the storekeeper holds your change
until the rain, hypnotic and dramatic,
leaves the streets and the gutters,
the balcony and the air greener, heavier—
mildew blooming in the closet where your shoes,
powdered with a sea-green lichen,
resembles old bronze,
a pair of ancient goblets.
While iguanas lounge in the attic
(a prehistoric version of the domestic rat),
the Office of the Ministry
(a pink and crumbling building
surrounded by dusty rose trees)
prints more money to prop
the flimsy flowered currency.
You can’t predict what your American
dollars will bring by morning.
In the hotel restaurant
you meet the Undesirable American.
He learns just enough of the local lingo
to swing by, living on a dwindling account
and, here and there, a real estate swindle.
Or the pensionado who buys two cigars,
offering you one the day
his Social Security arrives.
Like the cockroach, the displaced
have crawled through the cracks
and selected for themselves
an agreeable niche.
A place to start from scratch.
They thrive in the vegetable air.
You wonder how you’ll survive,
unfit, unable to work.
Lacking the predatory skills,
you’ve stayed in the trees,
a dreamer, all your life,
even now wanting to believe
a change of scenery
will get you back on your feet.
A brief hiatus in the vegetable air.
Tonight, you walk along the damp streets,
an average steak, a glass of wine
swishing in your belly,
to your small room wedged between
a jukebox and a dance hall.
There are so many things you can’t change—
like the dull thrashing music.
You draw the blinds, switch on the tiny cassette.
Silence. The click of the tape.
And then the familiar aria,
rising like the moon,
lifts you out of yourself,
transporting you to another country
where, for a moment, you travel light.
(1988)
You’re clean shaven in this country
where trees grow beards of moss,
where even bank tellers
look a little like banditos
in vests as pungent as sweatsuits.
Still, you prefer the vegetable air
to almost any other place on the map.
After the heart attack,
you considered Paris—
the flying buttresses,
the fractured light of its cathedrals;
the entire city refined and otherworldly,
ascending on its architectural wings—
but decided you had no use for glory,
boulevards fur-lined
with statues and expensive trees.
You admit, on the whole,
the towns in this country are ugly.
One summer you drove toward Nicoya
(a beautiful name that became your destination),
expecting a fragrant town of mango trees
but found cattle grazing in the plaza,
rattling the tin plates
in the ubiquitous Chinese restaurant.
A Coca-Cola sign hung weathered and askew.
That’s perhaps why you like it,
it’s a country you can’t count on,
a country of misfits.
Unable to take root in the mud,
the twentieth century has failed miserably,
creating neither factory nor industry
but a thirst for soda pop;
like cosmetic surgery,
it is skin deep.
The clock is stuck in the rain
and the mud of four o’clock.
There’s nothing to do but wait as if
in a dry cave, a room with a view of the waterfall,
pinned as you are beneath the downpour.
The waiter bends over your cup
without filling it,
the storekeeper holds your change
until the rain, hypnotic and dramatic,
leaves the streets and the gutters,
the balcony and the air greener, heavier—
mildew blooming in the closet where your shoes,
powdered with a sea-green lichen,
resembles old bronze,
a pair of ancient goblets.
While iguanas lounge in the attic
(a prehistoric version of the domestic rat),
the Office of the Ministry
(a pink and crumbling building
surrounded by dusty rose trees)
prints more money to prop
the flimsy flowered currency.
You can’t predict what your American
dollars will bring by morning.
In the hotel restaurant
you meet the Undesirable American.
He learns just enough of the local lingo
to swing by, living on a dwindling account
and, here and there, a real estate swindle.
Or the pensionado who buys two cigars,
offering you one the day
his Social Security arrives.
Like the cockroach, the displaced
have crawled through the cracks
and selected for themselves
an agreeable niche.
A place to start from scratch.
They thrive in the vegetable air.
You wonder how you’ll survive,
unfit, unable to work.
Lacking the predatory skills,
you’ve stayed in the trees,
a dreamer, all your life,
even now wanting to believe
a change of scenery
will get you back on your feet.
A brief hiatus in the vegetable air.
Tonight, you walk along the damp streets,
an average steak, a glass of wine
swishing in your belly,
to your small room wedged between
a jukebox and a dance hall.
There are so many things you can’t change—
like the dull thrashing music.
You draw the blinds, switch on the tiny cassette.
Silence. The click of the tape.
And then the familiar aria,
rising like the moon,
lifts you out of yourself,
transporting you to another country
where, for a moment, you travel light.
(1988)
I travelled among unknown men
William Wordsworth
I travelled among unknown men
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.
Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.
(1799)
It is another patriotic poem but is handled with a very different approach by Wordsworth. It is an analogy between his passionate love with Lucy and England. In the winter of 1798, he had a short stay in Germany and that stay in the foreign land made him nostalgic for the joys in England. It was when he wrote this poem. The word ‘ unknown’ is used in the title to emphasize the realization of the depth of his feeling for Lucy and England.
Garden of Eden by Briton Rivier
I travelled among unknown men
In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.
'Tis past, that melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore
A second time; for still I seem
To love thee more and more.
Among thy mountains did I feel
The joy of my desire;
And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.
Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed,
The bowers where Lucy played;
And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy's eyes surveyed.
(1799)
It is another patriotic poem but is handled with a very different approach by Wordsworth. It is an analogy between his passionate love with Lucy and England. In the winter of 1798, he had a short stay in Germany and that stay in the foreign land made him nostalgic for the joys in England. It was when he wrote this poem. The word ‘ unknown’ is used in the title to emphasize the realization of the depth of his feeling for Lucy and England.
Garden of Eden by Briton Rivier
America for me
Henry Van Dyke
Henry Van Dyke
'TIS fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,—
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.
So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars!
Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.
I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!
I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free,—
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.
Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
o the bléssed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars
(1909)
It is a patriotic poem with the rhyme scheme aabb ccdd eeff gghh iicc ccdd. In this poem, the passion and loyalty the poet has for his homeland America is reinforced by comparing her to other counties in the world. Traveling sometimes makes people reconsider their identities or even strengthens their sense of belonging to their home country. In this poem, he repeatedly mentions the point that Europe has too much history and past that he actually prefers the glory of the Present and the freedom of the Future in America instead. For example, ‘crumbly castles’, ‘statues of the kings’, ‘antiquated things’ represent many places in Europe such as London, Paris, Italy and Germany. In the 5th stanza, the first sentence – ‘I know that Europe’s wonderful, yet something seems to lack: The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.’ Personally, I hold a quite different view because I love history and past no matter how heavy they are. I think it should be ‘The suffering in the Past was to make the Present progress.’
Henry Van Dyke
'TIS fine to see the Old World, and travel up and down
Among the famous palaces and cities of renown,
To admire the crumbly castles and the statues of the kings,—
But now I think I've had enough of antiquated things.
So it's home again, and home again, America for me!
My heart is turning home again, and there I long to be,
In the land of youth and freedom beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars!
Oh, London is a man's town, there's power in the air;
And Paris is a woman's town, with flowers in her hair;
And it's sweet to dream in Venice, and it's great to study Rome;
But when it comes to living there is no place like home.
I like the German fir-woods, in green battalions drilled;
I like the gardens of Versailles with flashing fountains filled;
But, oh, to take your hand, my dear, and ramble for a day
In the friendly western woodland where Nature has her way!
I know that Europe's wonderful, yet something seems to lack:
The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.
But the glory of the Present is to make the Future free,—
We love our land for what she is and what she is to be.
Oh, it's home again, and home again, America for me!
I want a ship that's westward bound to plough the rolling sea,
o the bléssed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars,
Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars
(1909)
It is a patriotic poem with the rhyme scheme aabb ccdd eeff gghh iicc ccdd. In this poem, the passion and loyalty the poet has for his homeland America is reinforced by comparing her to other counties in the world. Traveling sometimes makes people reconsider their identities or even strengthens their sense of belonging to their home country. In this poem, he repeatedly mentions the point that Europe has too much history and past that he actually prefers the glory of the Present and the freedom of the Future in America instead. For example, ‘crumbly castles’, ‘statues of the kings’, ‘antiquated things’ represent many places in Europe such as London, Paris, Italy and Germany. In the 5th stanza, the first sentence – ‘I know that Europe’s wonderful, yet something seems to lack: The Past is too much with her, and the people looking back.’ Personally, I hold a quite different view because I love history and past no matter how heavy they are. I think it should be ‘The suffering in the Past was to make the Present progress.’
Travelling through the Dark
William Stfford
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
This is another poem about dilemma in a journey. He uses a lot of conflicts and contradictions to bring out the mental struggle of saving a fawn between emotion and reason For example, he uses the car as a symbol of technology to contrasts with the environment; and the life of an upcoming fawn contrasts with the dead mother deer. In the last couplet, he includes the reader’s feeling – ‘I thought hard for us all’ to make us feel being put in the same situation. And that is one of the reasons I think this poem is a bit sentimental. Another reason is the choice of word. The 2nd line of the 2nd stanza – ‘ and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing’ and the 3rd line of the 3rd stanza ‘alive, sill, never to be born’ the sentiment is mounting.
Lastly, the word ‘red’ in the 4th stanza is particularly sensitive in this poem that I can associate with words like ‘blood’, ‘violence’, ‘conflict’ and ‘danger’. The last word ‘river’ usually symbolizes life or passing of time, but here it is ridiculously referring to death.
Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.
By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off; she was large in the belly.
My fingers touching her side brought me the reason—
her side was warm; her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.
The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.
I thought hard for us all—my only swerving—,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.
This is another poem about dilemma in a journey. He uses a lot of conflicts and contradictions to bring out the mental struggle of saving a fawn between emotion and reason For example, he uses the car as a symbol of technology to contrasts with the environment; and the life of an upcoming fawn contrasts with the dead mother deer. In the last couplet, he includes the reader’s feeling – ‘I thought hard for us all’ to make us feel being put in the same situation. And that is one of the reasons I think this poem is a bit sentimental. Another reason is the choice of word. The 2nd line of the 2nd stanza – ‘ and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing’ and the 3rd line of the 3rd stanza ‘alive, sill, never to be born’ the sentiment is mounting.
Lastly, the word ‘red’ in the 4th stanza is particularly sensitive in this poem that I can associate with words like ‘blood’, ‘violence’, ‘conflict’ and ‘danger’. The last word ‘river’ usually symbolizes life or passing of time, but here it is ridiculously referring to death.
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