Harold45
07-02-2015, 07:00 PM
Hi there,
I wanted to share my interpretation of 'Daylight Saving' by Jennifer Wong and was hoping to get other views on the poem, some criticism of my analysis and, if someone happens to speak Cantonese, a heads up on any linguistic/cultural references I might be missing. It was originally published here: [it wouldn't let me include any URLs in my post, I'll try to add the website in a comment] ,please check it out :)
I'm just gonna copy the first three stanzas here:
Daylight Saving
Today we put our clocks back
an hour for winter
while the sun continues its journey
southward-facing.
You may stay the night
longer than usual, less
time for your legitimate home,
where you keep a clean wardrobe of smart suits
and half-hearted promises.
(....)
The first thing that came to mind was that either the lyrical I was the third party in an affair or her partner was having one (I guess the latter's more likely since there's a reference to an 'unremarkable woman' later on in the poem.) And, of course, using 'the extra hour' at the end of DST to advance this theme is what gives the poem its essence. It might also be a way of saying how a short period of time (one hour) is enough for us to make a mistake we might regret later. Finally, in an alternative interpretation, I read it as a lamentation on wasted time, on how one hour at a time she wasted away her time instead of advancing her goals and so now the hour finds her way back to her, an unremarkable woman.
Would really appreciate your comments ^^
I wanted to share my interpretation of 'Daylight Saving' by Jennifer Wong and was hoping to get other views on the poem, some criticism of my analysis and, if someone happens to speak Cantonese, a heads up on any linguistic/cultural references I might be missing. It was originally published here: [it wouldn't let me include any URLs in my post, I'll try to add the website in a comment] ,please check it out :)
I'm just gonna copy the first three stanzas here:
Daylight Saving
Today we put our clocks back
an hour for winter
while the sun continues its journey
southward-facing.
You may stay the night
longer than usual, less
time for your legitimate home,
where you keep a clean wardrobe of smart suits
and half-hearted promises.
(....)
The first thing that came to mind was that either the lyrical I was the third party in an affair or her partner was having one (I guess the latter's more likely since there's a reference to an 'unremarkable woman' later on in the poem.) And, of course, using 'the extra hour' at the end of DST to advance this theme is what gives the poem its essence. It might also be a way of saying how a short period of time (one hour) is enough for us to make a mistake we might regret later. Finally, in an alternative interpretation, I read it as a lamentation on wasted time, on how one hour at a time she wasted away her time instead of advancing her goals and so now the hour finds her way back to her, an unremarkable woman.
Would really appreciate your comments ^^