Conference with Wong Phui Nam

I’m grateful to have the chance to meet Mr. Wong Phui Nam in person last Monday. I’ve heard of him before, deal with his works for my courses, but don’t have any idea who he really is! The opportunity of meeting him was helpful in understanding Literature component better because he does not only come for a visit, but shared with us ways of looking at poetry. I’ve always enjoy poetry and his topic of discussion on that day was worth keeping in mind. What is a poem? Wong Phui Nam simply define it as ‘what a poet say’.
Poem are meant to read aloud is the first tips given by him. Secondly, we need to look at the sense of rhythm then, the sound shape and finally the diction. All these cannot be taught but need to be picked up by reading a lot of poems. By doing so, you will be able to get the sensation which open yourself to diction. In reading poems also we need to expect what the poet feels in order to help us to find meaning and undergo pleasure out of it. If you notice, when you really are into a poem you’ll find that as if you are being hypnotizes through the emotions created by the poet. Actually, a poet is creating a ‘spell’ (world in itself) to the readers by using imageries so that it creates the feelings and emotions the writers wanted to transmit to readers. I agree with Mr. Wong when he said poem is ‘not only an ink mark on a piece of paper’ but rather a primary structure by itself.