The poem “Is It the Kingfisher” by Marjorie Evasco and “In the Midst of Hardship” by Latiff

Mohidin have left me speechless, these two great pieces were never meant to be compared yet
they’re like a match-made in heaven. The peace and chaos, the refusal and acceptance, the
dreamlike and nightmare. They contradict each other yet it feels right writing this. Comparing
and contrasting these two unique poems based on their context and their wholeness have more in
common than one might think.
The author in the “Is It the Kingfisher” wants us to see that even though your faith in Him is
strong, you need some kind of hope and peace in yourself, the desire to find heaven on earth,
some kind of acceptance that you live in such world but the narrator refuse to believe so and the
narrator doesn’t have the much confidence in their self, they lack the characteristic in the
characters of second poem. Yet, in “In the Midst of Hardship” depicts the cliched thing on Earth
that if you have your family, you will conquer every hardship, that they have this high degree of
acceptance in their way of life, the accepting the inevitability of the struggle, even if it’s a self-
conflict. If you have your family, they have faith in themselves, everything will be alright. If you
read these two poems with an open mind, you will feel the hug of some entity, it’s weird yet I
felt warmth reading these two.
According to these poems, they were both written in different point of views, the first one was
written in First Person and the other one was in Third Person.
The ambiance in the Is It the Kingfisher has a calm view of this heaven-like place that He made
for us. And in terms of the scenery, I can imagine it with a dream-like background, like a very
subtle but has a cloud nine moment. It also symbolizes the peace here on Earth, it feels like a
very peaceful beach with fresh air to breathe, the blue-ness of the surrounding, with birds
chirping in the early morning. It has this solemness of the setting, the serenity of each stanza. But
on the other side, the second poem In the Midst of Hardship was filled with gray and sad theme,
the surrounding was a bit gloomy and from what I can imagine, it has this thick fog that
represents the gloom, the flood and the dreariness of the said poem.
Yes, they may have a list for their differences but don’t you think that these two poems also have
a thing or two in common? For example, the hope in their themes. We can conclude that the first
poem was in an uptight position, we can’t just assume and conclude what the narrator wants but
they’re hopeful, hopeful for their redemption and what God might give us in the afterlife, and the
second one was pretty obvious. In the Midst of Hardships tackles about a family that got
destroyed by the flood, almost all of their belongings were washed up and destroyed the
foundation of the family was stronger than the flood, they didn’t let it downgrade them and was
even hopeful that everything will be better and they will find new opportunities even if
disastrous calamity destroyed their spirit. And I really think these two great pieces are in good
timing in times like this, where we’re in the middle of pandemic and everyone is suffering. It’s
not that bad to read a poem that can lift our spirits and hopes up and we should be resilient when
facing hardship, and that facing hardship is part and parcel of life, if we face a problem, do not
feel despair.