Week 11
My analysis:
A book and a pen by Vaine Rasmussen is a poem about the Pacific islanders immersing themselves in Western education instead of their own Pacific island’s school. Due to the change of education system, they lost their culture, and this is to show how Westerner colonized them.
The poem is straightforward to refer the Western education and how it affects Pacific people. This is unlike the other Pacific poetry “Kidnapped” indirectly addresses the western education and the influences to the Pacific people.
The poem begins with the author’s younger experience with western education and the author successfully graduated with a piece of paper called “Academically qualified to matriculate at any university”.
At the second stanza, the author was successfully graduated from university with another piece of paper called “BA” (Bachelor of Arts).
At the third stanza, the author was being afforded with a job to use “books and pens, letterheads and folders to fill up with trash” and she cashed her pay packets at Tamure or Tumunu. The use of “trash” sounds negative, it shows she wasn’t satisfied with her job, and she considered it as “trash.”
At the last stanza, the author grew old, and author received a “pe’e, a legend, a song and a language to master.” This sounds like the author was doing a good job with the western education, but she lost her “dying culture” at the meantime, she started to feel unworthy and regretful for spending too much time on western culture instead of her own.
The poem used multiple times “They gave me…” instead of “I chose,” this is to refer to the author did not have any choices to choose what she was interested. It is like she was being forced to play with “a set-rule and a calculator” and to experiment with “Test tubes and Bunsen burners.” It is like she was being forced to learn “Marx’s theories and Solzhenitsyn’s literature”. Even in her career, she was doing something that people offered her, and she considered it as “trash.” She felt regretful and sad with what she did in her entire life without noticing she missed many.
After reading this poem, I felt like I am doing the same thing just like the author. Sometimes when I talk to my family, I forgot how to say certain specific words in Mandarin, and I only know these words in English. I somehow need to translate the English words into Mandarin and then tell them what I wanted to say. Living in a foreign country does sometimes make me feel like I am losing my language.
The original poem:
My creative response:
When the days came
When the days came
I wasn’t prepared
I wasn’t scared
I was handed with a book and a pen
To take notes
To write knowledge
To be a learner
Within the wisdom
When the days came
I was excited
I was worried
I was handed with a paper
With congratulations
I passed the phase one
And there’s another waiting
When the days came
I was handed with a paper
With course choices
I had a choice made
To learn
To exercise
To success
I was handed with another paper
With another congrats
With my graduation
When the days came
When the dream came true
With endeavor
With reputation
When the days came
When I lost myself
But with achievements
It’s worth it
Reflection:
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I have written a short poetry bases on Vaine Rasmussen’s poetry named A book and a Pen. It is similar to what I have written in week 7 and week 8; they are all about education. Much Pacific literature is related to Western education, apparently, the British education affects them, and they felt they have lost their identity and culture because of the different education system. I have to say different education system does change people, that’s why I wrote: “when the days came.” Education somehow became my most important part of my life; I may lose myself because of the stress of study and the environment. But I think it’s worth it because you can’t have it all.
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