Read Some Poetry

desiderata.english

This writer is glad to observe that in the past few years, our Government has re-emphasised the importance of English in the schools and at university studies, and this indeed augurs well for the nurture and advance of a rich heritage bequeathed us by the British. It is heartening to note that English litearature has once again been incorporated into secondary school syllabuses again, after some two decades of absence. From now on, I hope that when I quote from any poems of Shakespeare or Dickinson, the students of my tuition class do not stare at me with blank faces (the present generation would say: appearing blur ...). Yes, I once tutored some Form 6 students preparing for MUET, and when I quoted the opening stanza from "Leisure" (What is this life if, full of care/ We have no time to stand and stare...), there was no response in the form of recognition from the class of some forty 18-, 19-year-olds!

I would now recommend that people should regularly Read Some Poetry, for I assure you it will enrich your life. English proficiency, which will definitely be improved with the constant reading and appreciation of Poetry written in English, will not only make Malaysians more competitive internationally, but also enrich our journey in life, reminding us that in the daily hustle and bustle of the materialistic living, "A poor life this is if, full of care/ We have no time to stand and stare," (closing lines from Leisure, by W. H. Davies).

Our country aims to become a fully developed, i.e. First World, nation by the year 2020, a short 15 years away. In materialistic terms, the objective implied by developed nation status can be defined using economic criteria, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), per capita income, purchasing power parity, expressible in figures. But in the social and civic sense and other intangibles --the character, the soul and the spirit and mindset of the people -- that's where the difficulty lies, in terms of definition and quantification!

We are far from having attained a mature, civil society. Recently, many quarters, including our Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, have lamented that while the country can boast of infrastructure that rivals the best in First World countries like the US, Britain or Japan, like our oft-quoted Petronas Twin Towers, the people's mindset and social behaviour leave much to be desired. This is evidenced by the citizenry's general lack of civic consciousness, with daily media reports of common littering, unkempt public toilets, and inconsiderate behaviour on the highway, with the frightening prospects of one meeting the road bully, even resulting in death.

Malaysians may do well to heed this wise observation from "Thoughts on Virtue" by one of history's great thinkers, Charles Darwin (who propounded the "Theory of Evolution" in his opus, "Origin of Species"):

If I had my life

to live over again,

I would have made a rule

to read some poetry

and listen to some music

at least once a week ...

The loss of these tastes

is a loss of happiness,

and may be injurious

to the intellect,

and more probably

to the moral character.

Poetry indeed has a significant role to play in the "civilization" process of Homo sapiens. May the day dawn quickly when Malaysians, while trumpeting that we have the tallest twin buildings in the world, we also can stand proud in terms of our grace, culture and heritage, displaying First World civic behaviour and tastes.

Joyous Reading on A Happy Sunday. Thou shalt find time from labour to earn the daily bread to indulge in some labour of love! See you, my esteemed Conversationists, next Sunday for more on Poetry.