Vrouwkje Tuinman’s poem ‘Wolves’
Review of Poetry
I request readers to read the poem from the above link and then my review.
The fable of a shepherd’s false cries ‘wolf! wolf!’ dates back to centuries. The reader understands from the following the poem is about a person traumatized by an abrupt visual imparity:
He, for example, complaining that the stairs were
bothering him. That the evenings kept getting longer, that everything
used to be better.
But a deeper and repeat reading unfolds the severe depressed state of a person. The visually impaired person scaling steps is figurative. Because a person suffering an unfortunate visual impairment misses a lot more on colors and this infelicity withholds the sight of loved ones. Nonetheless, the visually impaired maneuver steps and stairs through practice. This way, we infer the tormented person’s suffering is in the mind and the context is his effort to move out of the harrowing situation. There is a subtle poser in the poem ‘Is the situation elsewhere so congenial and inclusive to heal him?’ People all over choke the vulnerable to the brink of death or depression. So the narrator sees clearly neither could he be cautioned beforehand nor any external awareness would help.
When we see the poem in this backdrop, we can very well shrug our shoulders why should a person get depressed at all. We are complacent and comfortable in a world which has no empathy for a sensitive or meek mind. Almost every door closes on the face of a desperate person. Advices outpour and free counselling only is extended and not a helping hand. Is there any better assurance of human values in a new place compared to the existing one? Someone can caution about wolf. But is there a safe haven anywhere? Isn’t a wolf growling within me?
Linear fiction or poetry is full of heroes and winners with matching antagonists and losers. A lament or forlorn expression is never the utterance of the strong characters or the author who is visible everywhere. A modern poem is in contrast. This poem is full of remorse of a mute onlooker of a poor creature falling prey to wolves. The reader too feels it in the same vein. That is the success of this poem.
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