poetry

In all three poems Mending Wall by Robert Frost, The Game by Judith Ortiz Cofer, and Slam, Dunk, & Hook by Yusef Komunyakaa, there is a connecting theme. It is a theme that is also present in the novel The Whale Rider. Each poem in its own way discusses some sort of boundary. In Mending Wall, it discusses the separation or fence between two neighbors. In Cofer’s The Game, she discusses the imaginary boundary between real life and make believe. In Slam, Dunk, & Hook, boundaries are broken the basketball court. This one idea presented in different ways, is also an idea that is threaded throughout The Whale Rider: the boundary between real life and myth and the boundary between women and men.
In Mending Wall, it discussing the building of a stone wall between two neighbors property. One neighbor questions why each spring they must return to their stone wall, each remaining on opposite sides, to repair something that seems to him unnecessary. Yet the wall remains and that neighbor does not say a word about his questioning. The neighbor remains stubborn in his ways, his ways and ideas that have been passed down to him by his father: that neighbors must have fences. This stubborn idea relates to the ideas of the great-grandfather Koro in The Whale Rider. Koro is stuck in the past; he is stubborn and believes that men are more important than women, just as the one neighbor believes a fence to be so important. Each character, Koro and the neighbor, cannot let go of a boundary that has been in place for so many year; they are unable to let go.
The idea of boundaries occurs again in Cofer’s The Game. This poem discusses a young disabled girl, Cruz, who is able to escape the reality of her life by playing house with the child next door. Cruz was able to escape from reality and jump the boundary into fantasy. She was able to forget about her life and happily engorge herself on the happiness of her own dreams. This breaking of boundaries occurs in the novel The Whale Rider as well. At the end of the novel the sacred bull whale beaches himself. Koro gathers all the men to take on the task of saving the whale and in effect saving the Maori people. The men are unable to take on such a great task alone. Koro finally breaks down his invisible boundary and turns to the women to help. The boundaries between men and women are taken down even farther when his own niece becomes the sacred whale rider.
In the last poem, Slam, Dunk, & Hook, the boundaries of the boys basketball abilities are broken on the day one boys mother dies. They surprise themselves by breaking out from their normal moves and doing things they didn’t even know they could. This idea is also found in The Whale Rider, when the line between myth and real life joins. It is something that seemed impossible but all of the sudden comes together and makes so much sense.
This idea of breaking boundaries comes up as a theme throughout the novel The Whale Rider, and each of these three poems using there own stories and own techniques are able to display this message.