The poem discusses the secrecy surrounding marriage and relationships. It suggests that people do not openly sing about happily married love for fear of tempting fate if things change. In relationships, we can only see the surface and do not truly know what goes on privately between partners - whether they act as lovers or adversaries. Marriage is likened to a blue bowl that looks pleasant from the outside but whose contents are unknown until it breaks, such as when partners begin communicating through lawyers during a divorce.

1. No one sings about happily married
love for fear of jinxing a good thing
or having to eat his vaunting words
should he fall off his king- sized bed
We kiss our friends, touch
the edges of their lives, cannot know
if our best friends enter their common
bed as lovers or warriors on a truce or
commuters at the station to board
dreams going away from one another
Marriage is a blue Wedgewood bowl,
filled or empty. we know only when
it’s broken, when they begin talking
to each other through lawyers
About Unsung Love
by Hillary Tham

2. Point of View
first person
- the use of ‘we’.
Style
expository
- subject- oriented style
- focus on specific topic (marriage)

3. Stanzas
- three stanzas
Rhyme
- no rhyme
Tone and mood
- Cold
- Insecure
- Pessimistic

4. Themes
- Secrecy
- Marriage
- the realities in life
Symbols
- bed – the ultimate witness in a marriage
- blue Wedgewood bowl- people can only see from the
outside
- blue colour - might symbolize depression or it can also be
interpreted as peace, and harmony.

5. 1st Stanza
- four lines
- touch about marriage that cannot be singing
proudly.
- Otherwise might jinx the marriage.
- could be knocked down from the so-called
comfortable and luxury life.

6. 2nd Stanza
- Six lines
- talked about friendship versus marriage.
- Only the spouse know about their marriage life.
- Whether they are lovers or enemies.
- Whether they are walking together holding hands
through their life or maybe they are just waiting for the
perfect time to separate.

7. 3rd Stanza
- Four lines
- the writer symbolized the marriage as the blue
Wedgewood bowl.
- We can never know whether someone is really
happy or unsatisfied with his marriage.
- Maybe when they started to fill a divorce form,
then only we will see what is going on actually.

8. Poetic Devices
metaphor
sings- to brag about
eat his vaunting words- bear for the consequences
warriors on a truce- in a cold war, waiting to fight back
commuters at the station to board- wait for the perfect time
to leave

9. Imagery (visual)
- commuters at the station to board
- blue -Wedgewood bowl
Personification
dreams going away
Assonance
- jinxing a good thing,
- lovers or warriors

10. Moral values
R modesty- being humble in life
R communication is an essential
towards healthy marriage.

11. References
• Tham Hilary. Spirit of the Keris, A Selection of
Malaysian Short Stories and Poems. Petaling
Jaya:Maya Press, 2003
• http://faculty.mwsu.edu/psychology/Laura.Spi
ller/Experimental/sample_apa_style_litreview.
pdf
• http://literary-devices.com/

12. • Hilary Tham Goldberg, 58, a poet, painter and teacher.
Mrs. Goldberg was born in Klang, Malaysia, the daughter of Chinese immigrants,
and was educated at a convent school taught by Irish nuns.
Her grandmother grumbled that she wasted too much time with her nose in a
book, but a high school English teacher urged her to continue reading and to write
poetry.
She received a master's degree in English literature in 1969 from the University of
Malaya and immigrated to the United States in 1971 after her marriage to a Peace
Corps volunteer in Malaysia.
She was the author of nine books of poetry and a book of memoirs and poems,
"Lane With No Name: Memoirs and Poems of a Malaysian-Chinese Girlhood"
(1997).
A book of poetry titled "Bad Names for Women" (1989) won second prize in the
1988 Virginia Poetry Prizes. Two of her books are used as Asian studies texts by the
University of Pittsburgh, and her most recent, "Tin Mines and Concubines," a
collection of short stories set in Malaysia, won the Washington Writers Publishing
House Prize for fiction and will be published in the fall.
She died on June 24 of metastatic lung cancer at her home in Arlington.