And welcome to my poetry portfolio for the NTU course HZ9201, Poetry.

 

I had once claimed that there is meaning in everything, even in the absence of meaning. In life, our minds are constantly trying to make sense of the world around us, attaching meanings to everything that we see, do, think and feel. This has been the norm for us, such that when we see something seemingly nonsensical, our minds strive to make sense of it.

 

This effort of seeking meaning can be rewarding for both the writer and the reader. The writer is challenged and strives to allow the reader to see new perspectives and meanings with the goal of bringing his world to the reader, while the reader is provoked and seeks to understand what the writer wishes to say. This is the struggle between reading and writing, a struggle that can never end or will it end—and yet, it is this struggle that brings with it reward. But when does that struggle truly begin? What sparks this initiative in the writer and the reader to enter this struggle?

 

There are certain expectations and standards that have been unconsciously and inevitably created over the course of time with regards to how we read, some of which have preceded the activity of reading altogether. There are indeed numerous habituations we have when it comes to reading. It is when these habituations are challenged, when these standards are subverted and removed, that the struggle between reading and writing begins.

 

These subversions takes both the reader and the writer out of their comfort zones, to explore and test the limits of communication. What is the limit, before communication breaks down? What effects do these subversions have on reading as a whole? What is taken away?

 

What is created?

 

At the beginning of this semester, I had been plagued with this thought of never being fully understood, nor being able to fully understand—that the world is filled with individuals who can be connected with one another and yet be as distant from each other as strangers. My goal was thus to seek how communication could be best achieved.

 

But while going through this semester with these sentiments in my mind, I am amazed and intrigued by how writers are able to utilise and bend the conventions of communication and yet achieve multiple layers of meanings. The pieces looked at in class are clear evidence of a long history of the exploration into the various aspects of communication, both written and spoken, to best bring about meaning. Conventional literary structures; sound; perspective; language and its syntactical units; and memory were focused on in class, being only but small area in the vast universe of communication. (It really is a pity that our class had to end. I’d wish for a second class, if possible…)

 

Communication is indeed a very flexible and malleable thing—and yet it is also a deadly weapon which can be used to harm, to hurt, and to influence. It is thus because of this that I remember one important focus that was brought up to me, even at the very end of this semester: what is there to be gained from a piece of literary work, not only by the writer, but also by the reader? Is what you wish to communicate worth the reward of writing and reading it?

 

It is with these sentiments that I embark on this portfolio. I have decided to look at the necessities and prerequisites for reading, three of which I would focus on: the need for sound to read; the need for light to read; and the need for there to be a certain structure to read. Thus, for each of the three poems in this portfolio, I would seek to focus on one of these necessities. I am interested in the meanings created from the paradigmatic and syntagmatic relationships within these prerequisites, how their absence can affect reading, and how their absence can also affect other requisites as well, for it is only when the requisites of reading all work together in tandem, that reading (in its normal conventional sense) can occur. It is interesting to note that meaning can precede reading, that even without reading, meaning can be formed. I would seek to explore this notion as well.

 

My last poem would take us back to the beginning of the semester, when I penned this poem, and when I had decided to write and explore about this issue between reading and writing. This portfolio would thus, in a rather loose reverse-chronological order, be a record of my exploration with the essence of language: of my various explorations throughout the semester of what language can do on a printed page, back to my initial despair for this gap between reading and writing. The order in which the poems are arranged is also a reflection of how these elements of reading build upon one another, from utterances of sound, to the seeing of words, to the attempt to establish a structure within language, and finally, after all of these, the ever-present struggle to understand and to be understood.

 

But why a transition from print to electronic? Why a change in medium? In the midst of preparing this portfolio, and even at various points of time in the semester, I am met with the technical limitations of print. It is indeed a challenge and a reward to work within the constraints of print, but it is sadly not within my current capabilities to address and challenge them to the extent that I desire. Technology, in this aspect, can aid in resolving or at least mitigating these limitations. I am also interested in seeing how this change in medium might affect the poems in this portfolio, and how new meanings and effects can be achieved by adapting them. The need for certain poems to be addressed through non-print methods have also been part of this decision to transit. This indeed would be my first time attempting to incorporate technology into any of my literary work, and it would be interesting to see what challenges it would entail and what rewards would reaped, both by the writer and the reader.

 

So, I hope you do enjoy this portfolio as much as I enjoyed preparing it, and most importantly I hope that you may find meaning where and when it is not found.