"Cronulla Beach"

 An Analysis of a 21st Century Philippines bmmm Literature entitled

 "Cronulla Beach" by Jose Wendell Capili

 

Black or White; Still Human

 

"Cronulla Beach" 

by Jose Wendell Capili

    In Sydney's Cronulla Beach, more than 5,000 white Australians descended on the sands, attacking anybody who 'looked Middle Eastern or Asian. Revenge followed: Men of color rampaged through Cronulla with baseball bats, smashing storefronts, windshields.

                          -early morning news, 12 December 2005

                    1                                Blood surges rapidly 

                    2                               along Cronulla Beach.

                    3                               Armed with bats,

                    4                               white bodies are mad

                    5                               replications of tents,

                    6                               parasols and sunblinds

                    7                               spreading all over

                    8                               what used  to be kurranulla,

                    9                               aboriginal landscapes,

                   10                              the place of pink seashells.

                   11                               There is no chieftain

                   12                               on the shore, no starfish

                   13                               where dominion shatters.

                   14                               Not too far behind,

                   15                               thugs and their hand

                   16                               maids constrict exquisite

                   17                                shades of perplexity

                   18                               to keep generations

                   19                               pure and sterile.

                   20                              Space beneath vestiges

                   21                               of hamlets from long ago

                   22                               have become driftwood,

                   23                               shells, cleavers of melting

                   24                               pots and succession.

                   25                               They are swaying eerily

                   26                               translucent as postcards              

                   27                                bereft of scintillating light

                   28                                in the heated - up weather.                   

                   29                                So racializing this soap.

INTRODUCTION 

             The poem "Cronulla Beach" of Jose Wendell Capili talks about the turbulance happened in Cronulla Beach in Australia that led the generations wanting to stay pure and sterile. What do you think is the reason behind?  

              Racism is shown in "Cronulla Beach", a poem written by a writer and academic from Philippines. Jose Wendell Capili. The poem was published under the book, "The second Genesis: An Anthology of Contemporary World Poetry" in 2014.

          

 

BACKGROUND

 Jose Wendell Capili

Born                 Manila, Philippines

Pen Name        Jose Wendell Capili

Occupation      Professor, Poet, Author

Education        University of Santo Tomas

                           University of the                                                 Philippines Diliman

                           University of Tokyo

    `                     University of Cambridge

                    `     Australian National                                           University

            

            Jose Wendell Capili is a Filipino academic and writer.He earned degrees from the University of Santo Tomas, University of the Philippines Diliman, University of Tokyo, University of Cambridge and Australian National University. He is professor of creative writing and comparative literature at the College of Arts and Letters, University of Philippines. His creative and scholarly works were published in Asia, Europe, North America and Australia.

            Al Camus Palomar of the University of Oklohoma says that Edith L. Tiempo, Rene Amper, Peter Bacho, Jose Capili, Maria Carino, and the incomparable Fatima Lim - Wilson are incluided to remind us all of what reading good poetry, feels like. And read Luis Cabalquinto, Jose Capili, and Richardo de Ungria carefully. You will be immensely rewarded if you do. A.R.D.S. Bordado said that Capili's " The Great Australian Landscape" and "Gorilla Bay" show the Filipino sensibility imbibing foreign geography. The latter poem describes the beauty of the bay: "Gastropods on a drift conceive enclosures of bubbles shimmering forth, polished and white among rocks, splashing as spring time turns supremely aqua marine, even less torrential." Of "Baguio: The Demise", critic Ralph Semino Galan writes how Capili utilizers the aftermath of another disaster, the gutted down remains of the Pines Hotel that burned down in 1984, as one of the objective correlatives to express the emotional vacuity the personae oin his elegiac poem are experiencing years after their major romantic breakup. For Galan, Capili is able to obfoscate the obvious intensity of the emotions that are being stirred by the reunion, for he makes the ex - lovers focus on the physical landscape, rather than the inner turmoil they are feeling in each other's formerly familiar presence: "the rustle of leaves behaving like music." "The landscape of cones falling on mountain sleeves." " Pure hemp and other bell - shaped things awakening from a sudden gush of the wind".

ANALYSIS 

A. Literary Genre

            

               The literary genre of “Cronulla Beach” is poetry. Poetry is a literature that evoke concentrated imaginative awareness of experience or a specific emotional response through language chosen and arranged for its meaning, sound, and rhythm. The Cronulla Beach is a poetry, because it showcases imaginative awareness, expressed through language, a proof of this is the line “white Australians descended on the sands, attacking anybody who looked Middle Eastern or Asian which conveys a message of awareness that racism could result to the worst things or event.

A. Analysis Guides

            

            These are the Analysis Guides that helped us to come up with our own analysis of the poem “Cronulla Beach”.

            Reader Response

                        This poem changed my perspective about Australia. The white and colored people got hurt and injured because of the conflict between them, which is very disappointing for us. I feel sad because having this kind of act is not tolerable because they are simply not respecting people’s race.

            Tone

                           The poet leaves out significant facts and we are supposed in the race riots that occurred in Australia. The poem’s mood is feeling or brooding does not change within the body of work. On the other hand, the poem’s tone is serious for it describes the race riots happened in Australia.  

 

            Point of View

                          Seems like the narrator is implying the reality of the poem “Cronulla Beach between the white and colored people. On the other hand, the poem “Cronulla Beach” has no unbiased to the white and colored people. The narrator doesn’t choose between white and colored people to be biased because for the narrator all people are all same because we are all humans.

 

              Diction and Style

                    The words used in the poem are all in formal form. “Cronulla Beach” follows the grammatical rules, and has a very complicated structure of sentences, but the message is conveyed. Different authors might use the informal diction, which is more common in different types of literary form

 

             Sound Effects

                         The poem has no sound effect. Since, it’s free verse poem, it has no rhythm nor syllabic count. It can be read casually.

 

            Structure of the Text

                         Compose a one paragraph, three-to-five-sentence summary of your text using the Sound Effects. If you did not use this in your analysis, just remove this part.

 

            Purpose

                            The purpose of the poem is to inform the readers. So with that, the readers will be aware on what happened in Cronulla Beach where the riots occurred between white men and colored men. The author also wants to change the perpective of the readers about the Australian.

 

           Techniques

                                The technique used in the poem “Cronulla Beach” is symbolism. It is symbolism because the author used pink seashell to represent peace. Blood represent for danger in Australians.

            Theme

                            The theme of the poem “Cronulla Beach” is racism between white men and colored men. One of the darkest days is believed to have arrived. The Australians are only allowed to protest at the end of the day, and the others are not. 

C. Contextual Analysis

            

            The setting used in the poem “Cronulla Beach” is the Cronulla Beach of Sydney, Australia, and the poem is about racism, especially for the Asians. We have researched the author’s background information, and found out that he studied in Australia. Therefore, it can be concluded that the author has written the poem based on his own experiences when he was studying in Australia.

SUMMARY

            The text “Cronulla Beach” of Jose Wendell Capili is all about the turbulence between the white people and colored people that had happened in Sydney’s Cronulla Beach Blood surges along the beach Men of color with bats who are smashing storefronts and windshield are all mad. The tents, parasols, and sun blinds spread all over. The people’s leader is not present. Thugs and their hand maids constrict equisite shades perplexed condition to keep the generations pure and sterile. The spaces beneath the vestiges of small villages have become driftwood, shells, annual melting pots, and succession. They swayed brilliant light in a hot weather.gg

REFERENCES

	AUTHOR/S	TITLE OF THE BOOK/WEBSITE	TITLE OF THE ARTICLE/TEXT	WEBSITE LINK
1	Fatima Templo	Wordpress.com	Cronulla Beach	Cronulla Beach By Jose Wendell Capili – Random
2	Lyzelle Martinez	Prezi.com	Cronulla Beach	CRONULLA BEACH by Lyzelle Martinez
3	Wikipedia	Wikipedia		José Wendell Capili - Wikipedia
4		Philippines.academia.edu		Jose Wendell Capili | University of the Philippines - Academia.edu
5	Kyle Klimberg Camagong	Wordpress.com		21stliterature66.wordpress.com