Essay About Batik Maker And Impression        Poems

Formalism on the Batik Maker: My Impression
Kal-El Franco Renato R. Carasig                                                August 14, 2015 Grade VIII – St. Joseph                                                                     Ma’am Madrid                        The Batik Maker: My Impression        Poems are truly personal and the author may have a very different idea when he/she wrote the poem when compared to the readers’ interpretation.The Batik MakerTissue of no seam and skinOf no scale she weaves this:Dream of a huntsman paleThat in his antleredMangrove waitsEnsnared;And I cannot touch him.Lengths of the dumb and widthsOf the deaf are his hairWhere wild orchids thumbOr his parted throat surpriseTo elegiac screamingOnly birds ofParadiseAnd I cannot wake himShades of the light and shapesOf the rain on his palanquinStain what phantom pantherSleeps in the cage ofHis skin and immobileHands;And I cannot bury him.Upon reading the poem, I was given the impression that the main character of the poem who be the Batik Maker herself but further reading revealed that it is not the Batik Maker but the design which the Batik Maker would imprint on her creation.  The poem tells about a hunting scene where the huntsman had been trapped or hurt while a panther awaits in the shadows. The poem is a suspenseful one as we do not exactly know what happens to the huntsman.  The use of the repetitive words “And I cannot touch/wake/bury “further adds to the question if the hunter did in the end die.These lines also gave me the impression that perhaps the Batik Maker is talking to herself about her creation because once the design is put on the cloth using wax, the Batik Maker will not be able to touch her work lest she ruin the candle etchings that will provide the design.  After immersing the cloth in the tub for coloring, the Batik Maker must let her creation “sleep”, thus “and I cannot wake him”. But the final line “and I cannot bury him” may indicate that the Batik Maker cannot put away her creation because it is not finished yet.