Lesson Summary

Boey Kim Cheng's poem Report to Wordsworth is deeply disturbing due to its vivid depiction of nature’s destruction and the speaker's anguish. The poem laments the devastating impact of human actions on the environment and conveys a desperate plea for the presence of Wordsworth, a symbol of nature’s celebration.

Key elements contributing to the poem’s disturbing nature include:

• Earnest Tone Desiring Wordsworth’s Presence: The opening line, “You should be here, Nature has need of you,” is an apostrophe that emphasizes a desperate call to the deceased Wordsworth, suggesting the gravity of nature’s crisis and a lost cause for hope.
• Personification of Nature: Nature is portrayed as a suffering woman: “She has been laid waste,” “Smothered by the smog,” and “the flowers are mute” illustrate an environment that is stifled, silenced, and dying.
• Description of Proteus: The sea god Proteus symbolizes lost hope, “entombed in the waste we dump,” evoking haunting imagery of nature buried beneath human trash.
• Description of Triton: Triton’s musical notes “struggle to be free,” his “famous horns are choked,” and “his eyes are dazed,” depicting a silenced voice and a stunned protector of the sea.
• Description of Neptune: Neptune is “helpless as a beached whale,” a powerful simile highlighting utter vulnerability, while “insatiate man moves in for the kill” sharply criticizes human greed and destruction.
• Failing State of Poetry, Piety, and Nature: “Poetry and piety have begun to fail,” signaling a lost reverence for nature and spirituality, as “Nature’s mighty heart is lying still,” indicating ecological death.
• Destruction of the Sky and Impending Death of God: The “wound widening in the sky” and God “labouring to utter his last cry” symbolize cosmic and spiritual decay, emphasizing ultimate loss and despair.
• Poem’s Structure: The sonnet form, with an ABABCDCDEFEFGG rhyme scheme, iambic pentameter, enjambment, and caesura, creates a flowing yet controlled expression of sorrow and urgency, mirroring the relentless unfolding of nature’s tragedy.

In summary, Cheng’s poem is a powerful, sorrowful exposition of environmental devastation driven by an earnest voice longing for Wordsworth’s return, rich personification of nature’s decline, vivid mythological imagery, and a structure that enhances the emotional impact of the speaker’s tragic message.