I wonder By: Jeannie Kirby

I wonder why the grass is green,

And why the wind is never seen?

Who taught the birds to build a nest,

And told the trees to take a rest?

Oh, when the moon is not quite round,

Where can the missing bit be found?

Who lights the stars, when they blow out,

And makes the lightning flash about?

Who paints the rainbow in the sky,

And hangs the fluffy clouds so high?

Review: 'I Wonder' by Jeannie Kirby is one of the poems included in the new literature component for Form 1 to Form 3 and it is indeed a very interesting poem.

On first reading, it is rather apparent that the poem seems to be a “lament” by the persona on everything around him or her. There is a strong sense of “deep thinking” and it resembles the typical “small thoughts” that we have when we’re observing our surroundings or wake up in the morning or even when we’re sitting alone, sipping our coffee at the corner of a coffee shop. 

The poem is written in an “a a b b” rhyme scheme, a popular scheme used to create a “song-like” poem. In fact, some teachers have spent time changing this poem into a song, to help the students.

The poem use of questions to instills the feeling of reflective. the persona question the world order, who, what and why does "things" happens. the things that happened in the poem were majestic and miracles, that cannot be done or comprehended by human.

The last two line have a connotation to religious, in particular, Christianity, as God in Christianity was symbolized as the father. and thus, the meaning of the poem was that humans are young, powerless and cannot understand the whole world. the poem also suggested that human will eventually learn, but God do not give the whole knowledge, unless human seek it. the knowledge seek was the true knowledge, the understanding of the all powerful God and the capacity of human understanding. the point to be discuss here was that whether the human have the capacity to understand the whole concept of "true knowledge"?

But, if the poem were read through the eye of an innocent child, the line may means the father of the child, as child usually will ask anything from the parents. all the questions will then referred as the child's observations of the world. the inquisitive feelings that child have plus the naivety of understanding how the world move. Both interpretation above suggested knowledge gained through asking, human@child will not gain the whole knowledge, but will eventually learn bit by bit. it also stressed on the need of a guider@teacher@father to guide the human@child.

This poem is rather straightforward to be taught. The key here is to build up the mood or sense of emotional outburst. One way is to use the Lemon Tree song by Fool’s Garden. The song is essentially similar in terms of how the persona is expressing his or her opinion on things that “just didn’t turn out right” and the sense of disappointment and emptiness. In Jeannie’s poem, the persona laments on human’s ignorance in promoting love and peace. In the Lemon Tree, the persona laments on his long-lost love (perhaps a girlfriend). 

Info for Teacher:
It is often good to start a literature lesson with a song, as means to attract students’ attention and highlight salient features of a specific text. In terms of themes, always start with an easy surface theme before going deeper like in “I wonder”, tolerance and acceptance would be ultimate theme.