Poetry Analysis

Five Ways to Kill a Man
by Edwin Brock
Through the open Window (page 48)

Edwin Brock was a British poet and grew up in South London and passed away in the year of 1997. He said that much of his writing was about his family relationships, his marriages, and children. It would be interesting if his family inspired this particular poem. It was the title poem of his book that published in 1990, and has been critically acclaimed for it's unique tone. The attempt to simplify it's complexity, the poem is a list of five ways to kill, and the first four are cumbersome ways to kill.

There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man:

you can make him carry a plank of wood

to the top of a hill and nail him to it. 

Each of the first four technique's symbolize a death of it's time, beginning with the crucifixion of Jesus.

To do this properly

you require a crowd of people 

wearing sandals, a cock that crows, a cloak

to dissect, a sponge, some vinegar and one

man to hammer the nails home.

I find how it's listed, like it doesn't need emotion to say, to be eerie. It's as if the death of Jesus, a knight slain in battle, the deaths of thousands in WWI and the crippling power of today's technology can be listed like your needs at a grocery store. Then again, some of those lives were taken down just as quick as a grocery list. Edwin then ends his poem with a way to kill that's much more simple.

Simpler, direct, and much more neat

is to see that he is living somewhere in the middle 

of the twentieth century, and leave him there.

This final method of killing a man is what puts that final emphasis on the original four. This final way makes my head spin in attempt to solidify Edwin's message because I see multiple perspectives. Is it just a shot to the present century when he wrote this? Does he see the twentieth century to be the darkest of all mankind? Did the value of a human being crumble? Did one life hold more worth back when a single fighter would be armoured in a valiant steel suit? Edwin certainly forced me to look within and see the present I live in. I love this thought-provoking poem; it leaves quite an impact.

Cum ber some
adjective

• large or heavy and therefore difficult to carry or use; unwieldy.
• slow or complicated and therefore inefficient. 

Sixteen to vote?

Age sixteen... you know, personally I wouldn't want my sixteen year-old self voting. The only opinion I had for Canadian politics at age sixteen was I wanted Harper out of government. I didn't even fully know why, I just didn't like listening to the guy. I also came from a very strong Liberal family. Really, I was just jumping on the Harper hating bandwagon. That's not a strong enough reason to choose Liberal; I wasn't educated to the slightest. I didn't know the intentions of the parties and I didn't know what my generation should be concerned for in the future. I knew the basics of parliament from my grade ten civics class, that's it.

I recently was listening to C.B.C. radio in my silver bullet Honda civic, and I heard an upset Conservative woman. She argued that the new young voters were just voting Liberal because of their rebellious mind, that they wanted to stick it to Harper. As much as I felt insulted, I also had to give her some credit. I had been that young voter... I don't even know if I have an educated vote now at age eighteen! There's something to say about being mature to vote. I'm not solid on the decision to keep voting at age eighteen, but my gut tells me the majority of sixteen year old's are just not ready.

Wow, now I'm really sounding like a Conservative.

The Adaptable Mind

The one thing I tend not to like about large, universe/life thought-provoking videos like this one is that it almost seems that the point being made is so vague and can be interpreted in so many different ways that it becomes deep. For instance, it says that people are calling my generation's economy the human economy. Then, to break down human economy, it's as simple as the five areas listed. Don't get me wrong, the five qualities definitely have a stronger impact on the economy today compared to our past, however I find it hard to categorize a human mindset with just these five. Maybe it's not the point they're trying to make, but if you take away the pretty space videos and popcorn in slow motion, the idea seems really stretched to categorize it in just five. I felt like Neil Degrasse Tyson was going to walk on screen at any minute and start talking about the universe.

For me personally, I think I'm pretty strong in the field of being human. In fact, watching the video I found I was more worried about my actual knowledge skills. Isn't the point to have the skills and knowledge of a field of work set first, then expand these new ideas with your human skills? I believe I'm really good at being a curious, creative, initiative, networking, empathetic human in life, but doing what? Then the question of how I'm going to continue the expansion of my personal growth in human skills... I'm going to be human! I'm going to keep wondering about my weird world- curiosity. I'm going to continue to be creative with my life, as it makes it a bit interesting- creativity. I'll take the initiatives with my thoughts instead of sitting with no progress- initiative. I'll interact with the people around me, considering the different dynamics of humans- multi-disciplinary thinking. Finally, I'll always be putting myself in other people's shoes- empathy. In the end, there's more to being human then a nice list of five qualities. Stop trying to pinpoint an unending concept like being human. Just go out and live it.