Report to Wordsworth (Cambridge (CIE) IGCSE English Literature): Revision Note

‘Report to Wordsworth’

Here is a detailed guide to Boey Kim Cheng’s poem 'Report to Wordsworth’, from the Songs of Ourselves Volume 1 anthology. It includes:

• Overview: a line-by-line “translation” of the poem’s meanings and interpretations

• Writer’s methods: an exploration of Cheng’s poetic choices and potential effects

• Understanding the text: an exploration of the themes and ideas within Cheng’s poem

Overview

In order to answer an essay question on any poem, it is important to understand what it is about. This section includes:

• An overview of the poem

• A “translation” of the poem, section-by-section

• A commentary of each of these sections, outlining Boey Kim Cheng’s intention and message

‘Report to Wordsworth’ overview

Boey Kim Cheng’s poem offers a modern perspective on Romantic ideals about nature. The poem is an interaction between the poet, William Wordsworth, and a speaker who reports from a grim modern world in which the natural world has been destroyed, as Wordsworth warned. 

‘Report to Wordsworth’ breakdown

Line 1

Translation

• The speaker immediately addresses the English nature-poet, William Wordsworth, as “You”

• He reports that the natural world needs Wordsworth, and he should be “here” (in the present day)

Cheng’s intentions

• Boey Kim Cheng begins with an apostrophe (opens in a new tab) to convey the seriousness of the issue:

  • The speaker calls upon Wordsworth to assist the modern world with its urgent environmental crisis

• Cheng alludes to Romantic poetry to draw attention to how the same problems exist in the present day: that of human connection with nature in an advancing world

Lines 2-4

Translation

• The speaker says that Nature (“She”) has been destroyed and left bare 

• This is because the “smog” has sucked the air from living things

• The flowers are silent, and there are hardly any birds because the sky is “dying”

Cheng’s intentions

• Cheng personifies (opens in a new tab) nature as a female living thing, typical of Romantic poetry

• The speaker describes the desolation of the earth using sinister sensory imagery, such as silenced flowers:

  • He alludes to a ticking clock, suggesting that time is running out

 Lines 5-10

Translation

• The speaker describes various mythological Greek and Roman gods of the sea:

  • “Proteus”, a shape-changing sea-god, is trapped in the “waste” humans “dump” in the sea

  • “Triton”, another sea-god who used shells as wind instruments, cannot make a sound, and he is “choked” and confused

  • “Neptune”, Roman god of the sea, has been “beached” like a whale, exposed and vulnerable

• The speaker says these gods have been defeated by greedy humans (“insatiate man”) who are hunting and preparing for a “kill”

Cheng’s intentions

• Boey’s allusion (opens in a new tab) to mythological gods of the sea presents the power and timelessness of nature, but the imagery describes a polluted and toxic modern sea:

  • The informal use of “dump” creates a cynical tone 

• Boey blames greedy humans for the destruction of nature, and the oppression of spirituality

Lines 11-12

Translation

• The poem begins to come to a conclusion: the values expressed in Romantic poetry, and any sense of respect (“piety”) for the environment, have failed

• The speaker says that nature, a powerful being, has been killed

Cheng’s intentions

• The poem is a dramatic lament to past poets who encouraged a respect for nature:

  • The things that once inspired and sustained us have failed

• The power of nature is emphasised in order to show how dangerous humans are to have been able to kill nature’s “mighty heart”

Lines 13-14

Translation

• The poem ends with an exclamation that warns of an injured sky opening up to reveal a struggling God who is about to cry for the final time

Cheng’s intentions

• Cheng’s poem mimics Wordsworth’s poetry by ending with a frustrated and defeated speaker who offers a bleak conclusion about humanity

• His modern poem goes a step further as he describes a dying God, and alludes to the end of the world:

  • The damage done by humanity is so extensive that it has touched the universe’s most powerful forces, including God

Writer's methods

Although this section is organised into form, structure, and language, it is worth remembering that all of these are considered “writer’s methods” in the CIE Literature for English poetry mark scheme. With this in mind, consider the poet’s choice of form (the way the poem looks or the type of poem it is), its structure (especially how it ends: is it cyclical or resolved?) and, of course, the language used to create effect and, thus, meaning.  

By focusing on the poet’s overarching ideas rather than identifying poetic techniques or translating quotes, you will gain far more marks. That is why all the analysis below is arranged by theme and includes Cheng’s intentions in terms of his choices of:

• Form

• Structure

• Language

Form

The poem ‘Report to Wordsworth’ is written in the form of a sonnet (opens in a new tab). By using a variation on a traditional love poem, Cheng suggests the earlier poetic forms of sonnets and the natural world have been altered by the modern world.

Structure 

Boey Kim Cheng breaks traditional poetic structures in order to present a destabilised and distressed speaker who pleads to past poets in a modern lament about the destruction of the world.

Language 

In this poem, Cheng draws on traditional and classical allusions to create tension and drama in his passionate reflection on the danger of human beings, and their reckless disrespect for the environment.  

Understanding the text

All the questions in the CIE Literature for English exam encourage an informed, personal response, which means that you should develop a sound understanding of the poem’s themes, main ideas, settings, situations and events. This will help you to explore the writer’s intentions and methods.This section has been divided into two main themes that Boey Kim Cheng explores in 'Report to Wordsworth’:

• Humans and nature

• Cultural identity 

Humans and nature  

• Boey Kim Cheng was born in Singapore in 1965, but moved to Australia as an adult

• Cheng’s concern with themes of place, and the impact of environment on individuals, is addressed in a poetry collection called ‘Another Place’:

  • The poem ‘Report to Wordsworth’ appears in this collection

  • In it, Cheng highlights aspects of the climate crisis, such as the line “helpless as beached as a whale”, and “the waste/we dump”

• In ‘Report to Wordsworth’, Cheng offers a desperate commentary on human greed and humanity’s recklessness towards a natural world “laid waste”:

  • The repetition of “waste” implies frustration at the needlessness of the destruction, as well as pollution 

• Cheng’s poem alludes to concerns expressed by Romantic poets at the time of the Industrial Revolution 

• Poets such as William Wordsworth, who Cheng addresses, warned of the emotional turmoil experienced by individuals losing connection with nature:

  • As mass production increased, poets such as Wordsworth expressed a deep worry about the consequences of a world without nature

  • They warned of the damage to an individual’s spirituality and imagination

  • Cheng refers to the failure of “piety” as “Nature” has been killed

Cultural identity  

• Boey Kim Cheng’s work is influenced by British Romantic poets

• Boey addresses the Romantic poet, William Wordsworth, in this poem, alluding to several of his poems in order to pay tribute to traditional ideas

• Wordsworth's ‘London, 1802’ begins: “Milton! thou shouldst be living at this hour: England hath need of thee”:

  • Boey echoes Wordsworth and all classical writers, such as seventeenth century poet John Milton, in his similar first lines

  • However, his poem uses modern language, and sounds far more serious: “You should be here. Nature has need of you.”

• Wordsworth’s poem ‘Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802’ has the line, “mighty heart is lying still”:

  • Cheng uses this metaphor to describe nature in his poem, which emphasises the worsening climate crisis

• Another of Wordsworth’s poems, ‘The World Is Too Much With Us’, refers to Greek gods “Proteus” and “Triton”, which Cheng describes dying in a polluted and toxic sea

• Boey Kim Cheng’s poetry presents a modern world that has become cynical as a result of its lost connection with the natural world:

  • This poem alludes to the death of God 

  • Cheng connects the past and the present to highlight continuing problems in the modern world

  • Using continuous present tense suggests the problems that have been previously ignored are immediate (the world is a “dying clock”)

For further advice and guidance on how to answer the poetry question, please see our detailed guides on Paper 1 Section A: what the question is asking (opens in a new tab) and how to get full marks (opens in a new tab). You will also find an example of a full, annotated model answer (opens in a new tab). 

It is important to remember that no marks are given for comments on any of the other poems studied in the anthology. Your response should concentrate only on the poem given. 

Sources 

“Cambridge IGCSE (9–1) 0992 Literature in English syllabus for examination in 2026.” Cambridge International Education, https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/Images/697264-2026-syllabus.pdf (opens in a new tab). Accessed 6 August 2025.

Songs of Ourselves: Volume 1: Cambridge Assessment International Education Anthology of Poetry in English. Cambridge University Press & Assessment, 2018.