CHAPTER II

AN AUSTRALIAN EXPERIENCE
(THE POETRY OF JUDITH WRIGHT)

The anthologies considered in this chapter are The Moving Image,

Woman to Man, The Gateway, The Two Fires, Birds, Five Senses, The Other

Half, Shadow, Alive: Poems 1971-1972 and Fourth Quarter.

Judith Wright’s fame largely rests on eleven collections of verse

published over a period of four decades beginning with two outstanding

volumes. Wright's first book of poems, The Moving Image (1946) celebrated

the New England table land of her childhood, her "blood's country . . . full of

old stories that still go walking in my sleep" (South of My Days). This

mystical quality of her relationship with the land never leaves her. Ever

mindful of the European world "we have lost and left behind," this new but

ancient land is full of questions and tricks: "Where do the roads lead? It is not

where we expected" (Country Town). Land and story are woven together: the

remittance man, bullock driver, stockman, bushranger, returned soldier, idler,

half-caste girl, metho drinker, and old Dan whose "seventy years of stories he

clutches round his bones."

In the opinion of her biographer, Veronica Brady, Wright's way of

writing about the landscape transformed the tradition of Australian writing

(The Australian, 27th June). Another poet and critic, Kevin Hart, says that

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her poems taught him how to see the country for what it is and its people for

who they are. He adds, "whether we know it or not, we all live inside her

poems" (Sydney Morning Herald, 29th June). Her landscapes are not those of

green, fertile England. Nor is this land to be tamed. The tree-frog and dingo,

rainforest and seacoast, stark cliffs and eroded hills, bushfire and flood, dust

and drought, wind and rain, flame-tree and cicadas, gum tree and cyclone all

exhibit a peculiarly Australian sense of mystery and power quite at odds with

the presuppositions of European settlers. It is a different kind of beauty--and

a different kind of terror.

Judith Wright's second anthology Woman to Man (1949) is better

known for the freshness of her approach in examining until-then taboo

subjects of sexual desire and especially women's sexuality. Such economical

though passionate poems as Woman to Child and Woman to Man, apart from

confounding thousands of adolescents in their final school-year examination

papers, provided a new language for exploring the sacredness of sexual

union, pregnancy and birth. Even these poems, considered by many among

the best of modern Australian poetry, demonstrate an earthiness at once

sparse and tender.

Judith Wright’s poetry has created a phase of exploration into the

amendments that Australian poetry has consistently carried out. As is

mentioned in the first chapter, many of the Australian writers came to terms

with the reality of the physical and psychological invasion of Aboriginal

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Australia. Judith Wright has transformed this theme of invasion and violation

in environmental and humanistic terms. She has presented guilt investigation

and symbolic expiation as historical in nature. Love and fear often come

together in Wright's poetry. So too do love and guilt. This is especially

evident when she engages with the issue of European 'invasion': "I know that

we are justified only by love, / but oppressed by arrogant guilt, have room for

none." The ambiguity extends further when she confirms the lesson admitted

by cultural anthropologists: the conquerors become the conquered!

THE MOVING IMAGE

The Moving Image was Judith’s first volume of poetry. As a poet she

made her debut in 1946 with The Moving Image, in which she showed her

technical excellence free from the burden of fashionable trends. The volume

is not only a celebration of the pioneering spirit shadowed by this parallel and

tainted history. The Moving Image was selected book of the month by the

Australian book society. The poems have a lyrical and unforced beauty. Most

of the poems were written in wartime. The experience of the war years

strongly affected the world view of many Aborigines. The horror that the war

has created has strongly influenced the sensibilities of the poets. Moved by

the war situation, Wright gave a voice in her poetry to these sensibilities.

Shirley Walker in The Poetry of Judith Wright: A Search For Unity (1980)

offering the best and comprehensive analysis on Wright’s poetry says that

Moving Image is one of her most impressive achievements.

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 The poem presents the passing of the enormous time to which

the nature is a witness. It presents the failure of the heart and the mind of

man in assessing those ‘enormous years’. Predicting the future she promises

that she would go along with the star and clock bearing the destruction on this

earth. She confirms that she is the maker of time and fear and found ‘love’s

whole eternity’. The poem refers to the endless destruction that the war

creates. The destruction blows only the dust and makes the world evil:

But there is no end to this breaking –

One Smashed, another mocks from your enemy’s eyes-

Put that out there’s a world in every skull

(Judith Wright Collected Poems.4)

Nothing is left after the destruction and the killing of the people. Only God

could save the world. Judith presents the Aborigine as the only one who

could save the world from the destruction and in whom the wisdom and the

life coalesce:

All the lives that met in him and made

The tiny world of his life, his passion, his skill

Shone from his eyes each as a separate star.

(Judith Wright Collected Poems. 5)

She is of the view that the trace of the civilization is found in Aborigine as he

is the first man of ‘every sound and motion forgotten and remembered’. But

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the whole world remains ignorant of the First man’s (Tom Bedlam)

presence: ‘the cry of Tom of Bedlam naked under the Sun”.

Bora Ring

Bora ring is a poem reflecting on the colonization of the black people’s

land. It is about the Aboriginal culture and how it has been lost. It is a lament

for the lost culture of original inhabitants (nomadic Aboriginal tribes).

The line length, long-short-short-long repeated in each verse, point to a

possible dance beat. The same dance that no longer takes place perhaps? The

words tell the sorrow of vanishing traditions that are not being replaced.

Perhaps the rider is of a generation that can still remember the original

vitality and that makes it all the more sad. A vacuum is replacing the loss of

customs and rituals that once defined who the people were. A lament, a

sorrowed song, the soul's deep cry for the land and its people, could have just

as easily been written for the tribes and land of the American Indian.

The textual integrity of this amazing poem is held up so well by the

aboriginal theme. There is use of compound words to emphasize the imagery.

The Aborigine, like our American Indians shared a common fate with the

European settlers, where both of their cultures were so destroyed. This poem

has simplicity. Judith Wright committed herself to the plight of the Aborigine

in Australia. She spent a huge portion of her life attempting to bring into

focus for better understanding of just how Aborigines were treated at the time

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of colonization and beyond. The first stanza is mostly poignant as it speaks of

the tribal dances verbally and visually:

The Song is gone; the dance

is secret with the dancers in the earth,

The ritual useless and the tribal story

lost in an alien tale.

This says that there is nothing left of their heritage and although Wright is not

aboriginal she feels remorse towards their culture and the ordeals they faced.

Judith Wright’s poems are a window to look at the different aspects of New

England. Many Australians still think of Australia’s traditional aborigines as

hunter-gatherers living in an unchanging landscape, although there is growing

recognition of their social and spiritual life. In fact, within the limits set by

their tools and available food supplies they were also sophisticated builders.

The Bora rings of England and southeastern Queens land are examples of this

aspect. These earthen rings of eastern New South Wales and southeastern

Queens land are significant ritual structures and are probably unique in the

world as hunter-gatherer constructions of known function, which constitute

notable monuments in the landscape.

Description of the Bora rings

The earthen rings known as the “Bora” are usually part of a complex of

two or three rings, linked by a path or paths. They were used in “Man-

making” ceremonies, that is, male initiation ceremonies. The large ring in the

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complex was usually part of a relative public ceremony, with women looking

on. The smaller ring was the site of the major initiation rite for initiated man.

The purpose of the third ring is not as well documented as the other two. It

has been suggested that these are women’s rings, but it is not clear that this

was always the case. Bora sites were often associated with carved trees.

The average size of a large ring is about 25-30m across, and a small

ring 10-12m. However, there is a wide range of variation. The earth is

mounded up to a height of 25-50cms. Usually there is a path, often to the

southwest from the large ring, connecting the small ring. The poem depicts

the picture of the Bora ring now alone in the landscape:

Only the grass stands up

To mark the dancing-ring: the apple-gums

Posture and mime a past corroboree,

Murmur a broken chant.

The hunter is gone; the spear

Is splintered underground; the painted bodies

A dream the world breathed sleeping and forgot.

The nomad feet are still.

The rider halts, feeling that the ghosts are still present.

Only the rider’s heart

Halts at a sightless shadow, an unsaid word

That fastens in the blood the ancient curse,

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 The fear as old as Cain.

The poem has a European perspective with the vanished aboriginal past. The

poem brings in the reminiscences of the past. At the time Judith wrote this

poem, there were almost certainly New England aborigines alive who had

passed through the traditional initiations at one of the Bora sites. Further, the

knowledge of the sites and their continuance has continued to pass on.

Bora ring is a lament for the lost culture of the original inhabitants. The

utter desolation of a lost culture, lost rights is emphasized visually and

emphatically. It depicts perfectly the European invasion of Australia. It shows

how the tradition and stories are gone, how the hunting and the rituals are

gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. It also

describes that it seemed as if the traditions of Aborigines were ‘breathed

sleeping and forgot’.

REMITTANCE MAN

Judith Wright writes poems presenting her perspective of life. Her

poems are subjective and convey universal theme, which men and women

can understand and relate to. In Wright's poem, ‘Remittance Man’, the

universality of the poem is brought out through the events, which occur, and

the themes, which are conveyed. The themes of ‘Remittance Man’ include

the lives of individual nomads, cycle of life, and contrasting of the old world

to the new world. These universal themes are conveyed through the tone and

poetic techniques, Wright has incorporated in the poem. In the poem

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Remittance Man, the theme of lives of individual nomads is conveyed

through the spendthrift, and the tone of the poem. Wright displays a

sympathetic tone in ‘Remittance Man’, as it is clear from the last stanza of

the poem, "closed its magnificence . . . polished by diligent ants". This line

has a lot of emotions incorporated within, and from her selection of words,

she is able to produce a glimmer of hope for the remittance man in his after

life. Wright has metaphorically implied his sins are cleansed, when the ants

are carefully polishing his bones, and he will finally rest in peace. In

‘Remittance Man’, the spendthrift lives an individual life, and has easily

forgotten his past and "took to the life" he presently lived in Australia. He

was a wanderer and did what ever pleased himself as there was no constraint

in his life. His life in England is visually depicted, in the structure of the

poem, where the first stanza is relatively short, as he had lived a constrained

life in England and his memories of England are diminishing. In contrast to

stanza 2, there are more lines as it shows the spendthrift has lived most of his

life in Australia, and that he has assimilated into the bush life. His days are

also long and boring, as illustrated in the long stanza 2. His death occurs in

stanza 3, and the stanza is relatively the same length as stanza 1 which in turn

produces an insight of the cycle of life, the spendthrift has. Throughout her

poetry, Judith Wright repeatedly revisits the common theme of Australia, its

people and its past and what it means to be Australian. She commonly relates

to the old traditional style of Australia's history and its landscape that is

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widely recognized for its harsh, rugged traits. This theme of the 'Australian

aspect' is clearly evident in 'Remittance man’. Social issues are displayed in

many poets’ work and their beliefs on these issues are exposed intentionally

through the use of various techniques. Judith Wright conveyed her view on

social issues in most of her poems, and built her argument by using a variety

of poetic techniques, which position the reader to comprehend her beliefs. By

developing a socially critical perspective through her poems, Wright’s view

of the world’s social issues is presented to the reader in a way that forces

them to ponder on the aspects of society mentioned. “Remittance Man” is a

poem through which Wrights beliefs on pregnancy, the relationship between

man and wife, and social dissatisfaction due to context are examined. Poetic

techniques or devices such as rhythm, figurative language and rhyme all

position the reader not only to be aware of the social issue, but also to

understand it, often through Wright’s perspective.

In her poem "Remittance Man", Judith Wright focuses on the theme of

living up to society's unwritten code of conduct within England's 19th century

culture. She suggests that within a society so socially divided, there remains

the idle rich who are obligated to abide by the incessant need for social

etiquette expected of their station. She compares this English lifestyle to a

carefree Australian society.

Wright's powerful use of imagery in painting the landscapes of

Australia and England, contrast in extremes showing Australia as having a

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more comfortable, slow-paced society, described in '...red blowing dust of

roads where the teams go slow.' She compares the Australian life to the

English, confined and unvarying, especially demonstrated in the upper

classes that have the benefit of 'pheasant shooting'. While these contrasts are

based on the landscapes of the two countries, Wrights distinctions allow

readers to empathize with the Remittance Man and the dramatic change in

lifestyle he experiences. She explores the impinging factor of the

environment on the human being. She proposes its influence in reviving

positive and negative memories.

The poem sympathizes with those whose personalities cannot conform

or assimilate into their cultural context, for example the Remittance Man

whose 'spendthrift' nature is improper for a man of his status. The need to

please and live up to society's expectations is a human condition emphasized

throughout Wright's poem.

In reference to Judith Wright’s poetry as being of a unique and

distinctive style, in particular, Wright is well known for her use of two

subjects, that being the ‘Australian aspect’ where in her work she commonly

relates to the old traditional style of Australia’s history and the ‘harsh

landscape’ that is well known as an Australian trait. ‘The Remittance Man’ is

a perfect example of this particular style. Whilst all of Wright’s poetry has its

own way of giving the lasting impression of these two aspects. The poem

‘Remittance Man’ stands out clearly as one of Wright’s most qualified

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examples of the Australian style. Even in the opening lines of this poem there

is the subtle indication of that impression that Wright so strongly feels for

Australia and the people,

‘The spendthrift, disinherited and graceless’ this English outcast i.e.

The Remittance Man, has no real class or presence of a respectable character,

yet these three dishonorable words refer directly to that almost traditional

idea of what the Australian man was in the past. Once it is established that

this Remittance Man is not wanted in England he happily retreats to the

shores of Australia and finds self-contentment with this almost opposite

lifestyle where he feels that no judgement is put on him and the absence of

more restrictions. The main idea of this poem is the constant comparison

between the cold, formal aspect of England to the harsh, laid-back way of

Australia, which is still a commonly perceived way that is seen today. In the

first stanza the line:

‘backtracks in the summer haze’

gives the instant idea of the Australian landscape that shows Wright’s direct

idea of what she distinguishes this as. This is just the first in a numerous

amount of lines that account for the typical view of Australia. There is also a

strong sense that Australia is favored and compared to that of England and

not just by the Remittance Man. Though England seems to have no real

qualities in this poem there is also subtle criticism to the refined English

culture that Australians ironically are renowned to be the complete opposite

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in manner and in the social etiquette. However once the English aspect is left

behind The Remittance Man abandons his old life and is released from the

formal ties he hated so much.

The ‘blind-drunk sprees’ were in the past and the’ track to escape to

nowhere’ was everything that Australia could offer him. Yet Wright still

cleverly intervenes with his memories of shame that presented the English

‘pale stalk of a wench’ which was replaced by ‘black Mary’s eyes’ the

indication of an Aboriginal. The constant contrast of the two opposites is

referred to throughout the entire poem showing the powerful idea that Wright

is putting to her readers. The images of the landscape are also one of

Wright’s strong passions that she often refers to, particularly the Australian

landscape. All of Wright’s Australian poems reflect the heritage and nature of

Australia; there is also the use of the past to show the traditional role of what

the country is well known for. In particular the strong conflicting nature of

England and Australia show the ironic twist that history shows that Australia

was where all the convicts were deported to from England. However in the

Remittance Man’s mind this was his ticket to paradise. The rugged beauty of

the Australian environment is where the Remittance Man finally lays to rest:

That harsh biblical country of the scapegoat. (11)

Though the Remittance Man found his happiness and self-satisfaction

this was not seen by those of his family, in particular, ‘the Squire’ his brother

feels a vague sense of care for his brother. He feels as if he has led a

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shameful and wasted life. This ending for the poem leaves the reader in a

neutral state of mind where there is an unpredictability of happiness. From a

different perspective, it should be questioned that this Remittance Man was a

failure and never subjected to anything. However, the elucidation of the

Remittance Man is the only significant aspect of the poem.

The Trains

Most of the poems of Wright were written during the time of World

War II. 'The Trains' written during the Second World War II, took the threat

of the war in the Pacific as her subject. The main theme was the poet's

awareness of time, death, and evil on a universal scale. It is particularly a

descriptive poem that uses many codes and conventions of the genre. Wright

says that the train journey ‘has a new tang to it-a sense of belonging’.

One of the conventions of poetry like this is the use of lots of similes

and metaphors. For example, old men's sleep is "shattered like glass," the

whistle of the train is a "wild summoning cry." The train itself is a "tiger.”

These devices are used to show us that the condition of the people during war

is miserable. Even the train, as a simple transport, is a tiger, ruining old folk's

sleep. The train in the poetry is carrying arms: a large symbol of war. So war,

through the use of the train, is with them "past and future, troubling the

children's sleep, laying a reeking trail across our dream[s]..." When the

whistle of the train pierces their hearts they recall the panic of war, the "old

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panic riot," and war through the ages: "blood's red thread still binds us fast in

history.”

The poem uses many different codes, some of them are old-fashioned.

For example, “the trains pass... with a sound like thunder." If you had never

heard a steam engine before then the phrase may have no meaning. In a few

generations, that code will no longer apply. The "wild summoning cry, their

animal cry" of a steam engine whistle is another code that will vanish. Today,

it is the electric powered bass horn, and the whine of the alternator, not the

high pitched 'animal' shriek and the rush of the cylinders of the golden days

of steam. One code, which will never vanish, however, is that of "blood’s red

thread... in history." That code will probably signal war forever.

The rhyme scheme used in "The Trains" is very interesting, if one is

even used at all! In the first two stanzas, the first and fourth lines rhyme. In

the third and last Stanza the first and third lines rhyme. It is hard to tell if a

rhyme scheme was used deliberately, or if the words that fit just happen to

rhyme. If not, the use of the irregular flow of words brings the poem

analogous to that of thought: which fits in with the idea of a poet's musings.

Another convention of the genre that is used in this poem is

onomatopoeia. This occurs in war poetry to a large extent due to the many

loud noises associated with war like explosives, guns, motors, planes, etc.

Two examples of Onomatopoeia the train's sound: "like thunder" and the

train's whistle: "wild [and] summoning." The poem departs from the genre a

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bit here: they are not exactly onomatopoeia; they are more like

'metaphor/simile sounds.' It is not really spelling the sounds, but describing

them. This creates the interesting effect of comparison.

In conclusion, through the use of codes and conventions, you can look

deeper into the poem and get an idea of the context. The poet works forward

from their life, and writes a poem, and if we work backwards from the poem

we can see some of the world of the poet.

Bullocky

Bullocky is a written art form. It describes in fascinating tactile images

and metaphors the eventual death. Bullocky is another poem, which can

depict the Australian landscape. In this poem, all stanzas are in the past tense

except the final one in which she changes to the present.

The poem depicts the final lonely days of Bullocky. Years of naught

but bulls for company, the only voice being his own as he cries out into the

nothingness, waiting for a response, and left wanting. Finally his loneliness

breeds demented fantasies; his eyes and ears play tricks, yet he does not resist

it. His hallucinations, his fiends and angels, are his only company. So he

surrenders to insanity, and for that fleeting moment before death he

experiences peace. He is sung into the long awaited death by the cattle-bells.

After that we read of the Bullocky being discovered, many years later, in the

vineyard. "The Prophet Moses feeds the grape, and fruitful is the Promised

Land." The Bullocky is at rest in the soil of the Promised Land (Australia).

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He is where he is meant to be, feeding the grapes, as part of life and Earth as

he ever was.

Judith Wright, whose pastorolist family established itself in northern

New South Wales and southern Queens land felt compelled to withdraw her

early poem ‘Bullocky’ from the anthologies of poetry used in schools

because she believed it was being misinterpreted as an uncomplicated

affirmation of the pioneering spirit — an interpretation, she noted, that

overlooked the fact that the old man in the poem is a ‘mild religious maniac’,

who is described as being in thrall to a ‘mad apocalyptic dream.’ ‘Bullocky’

is not an absolute rejection of the pioneering narrative, but the ‘tone of the

last two verses’, said Wright, ‘which I had seen as a gently affectionate send-

up of the Vision, was missed — they became a hyperbolic celebration of it’.

Furthermore, the poem only addresses one aspect of the story. Other poems,

Wright felt, were ‘necessary to a proper view of “Bullocky”.

The Surfer

Judith Wright conveys her appreciation of the Australian beach in “The

Surfer”. There is effective imagery throughout this poem. Wright invites the

reader to look at their subjects in particular ways. ‘The surfer’ is a strapping

and influential limerick. Judith Wright does this by capturing the awesome

feel and strength in the atmosphere and mood of the poem by including ‘joy

and exuberance’. It is about the beauty of the sea as it ‘crouches on sand’.

There’s a poignant verse in this poem. The poem is a celebration of the sheer

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exhilaration of those who take to the sea. Arguably Australia's greatest poet,

Judith Wright, was another persistent fighter ... and the picture she drew of a

powerful surfer at one with the sea. ‘The Surfer’ expresses many ideas on

challenge.

This poem is also quite blunt but at the same time it is also quite joyful

by showing the emotion of great happiness. Also the character is high in

spirits showing exuberance. ‘The Surfer’ invites the reader to look at the

subject in the poem in particular ways. There is a joyful and heartening side

to this poem but it ends on a tragic note. This poem expresses the idea of life,

what dangers might come upon it. The author throughout the poem

intentionally avoids the idea of ‘death’.

The Company of Lovers

‘The Company of Lovers’ was written during World War II and it

captures the feel of the time. This poem makes a juxtaposition of two

essential forces of major impact upon human existence, the effects of love

and those of death. Within the poem it can be noted that the two stanzas

reflect each of the certain themes. The first, a universal description of love

and the ambitions two lovers might have, whilst the second a reflection of

how quick all may soon be lost through the loneliness of death.

Wright is renowned for her use language, and many of her poems

contain paradoxes in which the reader is confronted with a phrase completely

unrealizable, but effective in portraying the nature of the poem. “The

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Company Of Lovers” itself opens with the use of a paradox “…We meet and

part now…” instills an image of simultaneous unity and depart, evoking in a

sense of temporary cohesion that may soon be lost. This may represent a

changing nature of ‘lovers’ and perhaps such a quick meeting and farewell

represents the promiscuous nature of some who class themselves as ‘lovers.’

Nonetheless, a different approach is taken as the first stanza introduces

‘the lost company’ which could quite well represent lost ideals or values that

once offered what was a company of lovers, which has now become short-

term relationships. This emphasis goes on to describe, with passion, the

joining of ‘hands together in the night’ of those “who sought many things,

throw all away for this one thing, one only” – love.

NIGGER’S LEAP, NEW ENGLAND

The poem is an attempt to achieve striking narration about the horrors

of the past period. ‘Night’ symbolizes the significance of the dark period of

history, when Aboriginals were killed. ‘The night is beat with the cloud of

boats against the sheer limelit granite head’ connotes the invasion of the

whites over Aboriginals. The killing of the Aboriginals and their fall is

exemplified: ‘Make a cold quilt across the bone and skull that screamed

falling in flesh from the lipped cliff’. After the period of complete

victimization and destruction Wright calls for synthesis. She provokes guilt

investigation and pleads the whites to learn the significance of life from

Aboriginals : ‘Now must we measure our days by nights, our tropics by their

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poles, love by its end and all our speech by silence’. In a serious self

introspection and examination Wright questions violence perpetrated on

Aboriginals: ‘Did we not know their blood channeled our rivers, and the

black dust our crops ate was their dust?’ She proclaims that all men are one at

the end of human history. For the velocity of destruction and colonization

that whites brought in Wright says that never the Aboriginal children will

dance like the shadows of saplings in the wind. It is the Night that reminds

us of the colonial history that sunk many of the islands when they were in

their pristine glory. The poem evinces that Wright was completely aware of

the earlier modes of culture dispossessed by the whites. She registers her

strong emotional repentance for the murders committed by the whites. She

considers her brought up in New South Wales as the most fortunate thing and

considers this as ‘New England’. She addresses ‘Australia’ in a old fashioned

way as ‘New England’ with an underlined realization of brutality executed on

Aboriginals. The poem is appreciated for its fluster and alliterative imagery:

Be dark, O lonely air.

Make a cold quilt across the bone and skull

that screamed falling in flesh from the lipped cliff

and then were silent, waiting for the flies

(Judith Wright Collected Poems.15)

Wright tries her best in retrieving the memory of the massacre of the

Aboriginals and places it in the larger sphere the human history of

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victimization. She expands the post conquest Aboriginal history to embrace

the entire humanity. G.A Brennan in his article ‘The Aborigine in the Works

of Judith Wright’ observes: “this reminds us that the cry of the falling

Aboriginal is not only the cry of his passing culture, but of ours too. His

death and the death of his people are an ominous reminder of our own

ephemerality” (Westerly, no. 4, December 1972.48). It is pertinent to

observe that Wright attempts to develop historical conscience and she accords

the scenes with an atrocity to be clearly retold in terms of perpetrators and

victims. On the lines of Wordsworth, Wright enters into an active

relationship with the nature and Aboriginals of Australia and succeeds in

dramatizing her yearnings and energies. She gets connected with fellow

New-Englanders and includes Aborigines as fellow humans. But sees the

power of darkness as something ominous ‘that tided up the cliffs’. She

cautions the whites that if Japanese becomes the next conquerors of Australia,

whites have to serve the similar fate of Aboriginals. Here, Wright’s ironical

perspective reminds that of W.H. Auden who with his ambivalence relished

the tide of history.

HALF-CASTE GIRL

The poem depicts the tragedy of little Josie. It deals with the ‘Half

Caste Girl’ dead and buried but restless. The girl is presented as a moral

agent. Wright proposes new recognition and synthesis which can liberate the

Aboriginals. This is obvious in the lines:

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 So she is restless still under her rootwarm cover,

hearing the noise of living,

forgetting the pain of dying (19)

The attempts of Half Caste Girl are universal. She climbs the hills that belong

to none. Once, she was proclaimed as the representative of Natives. But now

she sings the songs of women and the eternal song of love and dying as a

representative of humanity. She becomes a moral agent thrusting her heart

against the world’s stone. She uses her love but fails to bring down the wall

built with cunningness of the people. But Wright ensures that the seeds of

activism are here and they await the invasion of pressures from outside. It is

obvious that contemporary Australia insists on an activist’s stance. In 1982

Judith Wright stated that the little girl in the poem is based upon a person still

alive. But the poem is accused of unrealism by many of the Aboriginal

activists.

Woman to Man

Judith Wright's second anthology Woman to Man (1949) is better

known for the freshness of her approach in examining until-then taboo

subjects. When it was published it caused sensation as it is powerful and

educational even today. She introduces a distinctly female perspective.

Judith Wright wrote poems that range from the intense lyrical sexuality of

'Woman to Man' to the passionate poems as Woman to child. She provided a

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new language for exploring the sacredness of sexual union, pregnancy and

birth.

The poem introduces the image of developing embryo within the

womb of the author. The first three stanzas convey the wonder involved in

the creation of the new life. The fertilized egg cell builds the body silently

and swiftly. The eyeless labourer’ wonders about the body of the new

person. The author is in confusion about the utility of the new person.

Whether the body is for ‘resurrection’ or for ‘birth’ is not known to the

author. The word ‘resurrection’ implies death first and life after. The first

stanza foresees the future. The symbolism employed justifies the meaning.

The second section of the poem extends the image of the embryo. The author

emphasizes the namelessness of the child. The embryo has not yet

developed as a child. The intimacy with the embryo fails to justify the

relationship. They share the joy, love and wonder of the creation. The unborn

child is part of victimizing game. The author is unsure of the future existence

of the embryo but ensures that the baby will be intelligent in their

lovemaking. The third section presents the development of the child. The

strength, the flesh and the crystals are shaped by man’s arm, the women’s

breast and by the mixture of others. The wild tree reflects in the growth of the

arteries and veins of the embryo. From the undifferentiated mass of cells into

a human being the intricacy of the folded rose in the form of miracle is found.

Section four brings in the emotions and unfurls the minds of new parents. It

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captures the dramatic change of mood. The image of violence and enclosure

is clouded by the blindness and darkness. ‘The Blind head butting at the

dark’ connotes the emergence of the baby into the world. Though the

passage of emergence is dark, the child sees the blaze of the night along the

blade. As the umbilical cord is cut, the blade severs the ties. The pain and

shock in birth and life await for the child. Thus the birth of the child is

dangerous and deadly. ‘The resurrection’ in the first stanza acquires

significance in conveying that to create new life one has to risk death.

The poem is profoundly a moving poem. It deeply affects the people. It

conceptualizes the feelings of carrying a child. It gives us a world of

conflicting emotions that form the expectant mother’s mind. Wright creates a

clinical and detached effect and reminds that poetry speaks to the world

within us.

Camphor Laurel

Wright’s anthologies are sprinkled with celebrations of trees. We find

poems on the camphor laurel, cedars, the wattle and the wattle-tree, the

eucalyptus, the flame-tree, the pepperina, the orange-tree, the scribbly-gum,

and gum-trees among others. It ought to be noted that Wright’s use of the

definite article in these poems’ titles both points to the particular genus and to

the tree as an emotive symbol. To describe and empathize with gums, cedars

or flame-trees is powerful poetry but to turn them into objects of admiration

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or symbols of permanence was meant to remind her readers of the wealth and

precariousness of our natural inheritance.

The tree becomes an abiding image for the nation’s productivity. That

comes with a warning in the poem. ‘Camphor Laurel’ sets up an opposition

between the foolishness of the late-arriving humans and the simple but

persistent life of the old camphor laurel tree.

Under the house the roots go deep,

down, down, while the sleepers sleep;

splitting the rock where the house is set,

cracking the paved and broken street,

Old Tim turns and old Sam groans,

"God be good to my breaking bones";

and in the slack of tireless night

the tree breathes honey and moonlight.

Despite its apparent passivity and unmoving silence, the life and scent of the

tree critiques the gross and random evils of an uncaring society, which rejects

the now-rendered obsolescent weak and the old with a rigid exclusivity. In

fact, the tree gives off "honey and moonlight" just as it was meant to do. It is

a symbol of permanence, sweetness and native honesty compared with man's

short-term foolish, facile and unethical ways. Here again, Wright dramatizes

the tussle of man against Nature, for even the stationary tree has its logic

against the foolish revelry and willful injustice of Australia’s environmental

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neglect. People of insight may then learn these lessons from Nature to feel

their spiritual roots growing deep, deeper into simplicity.

The credentials of Judith Wright as an environmentalist are

praiseworthy. Wright’s focus on the helplessness of man about the

destruction of the trees and symbolism of the individual tree in her poetry

evoke theological reflections for eco-environmental atmosphere. The power

and presence of a great tree is a valuable insight and a force for admiration.

Like humans the tree is rooted and grounded in time and evolutionary

continuity. To Wright the tree offers many resonances, patterns, processes

and purpose of life. Greg Smith in his article ‘We are turned into a Great

Tree: Judith Wright’s strange word about trees’ says that Trees are significant

parts of the mindscape of the poet as they endure weather, erosion, drought

and they are given fixed places in the landscape. They are perceived as

faithful to the needs of human conditions. Human beings have to emulate the

persistence and endurance from the trees. The tree enhances the lives of the

people by interacting with earth, bird, air and life and it also reconciles and

unifies the lives of the people. Wright conveys the same essence of life in

other poems: ‘Rainforest’, ‘The Wattle tree’, ‘Eroded Hills’, ‘Old House”,

‘Two Dreamtimes’, ‘For a Pastoralist Family’. Wright says that the

celebration of the lives of silent trees is a profound reflection of human life.

Night after Bushfire

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 Judith Wright’s ‘Night after bushfire’, which describes the deathly

stillness of the burnt area. Thirteen-year-old Sophie is grounded for six

months after a bushfire was ... Wright's narrative style is her own brand of

magical realism. This poem describes the deathly stillness of a burnt area, a

landscape of ‘charcoal and moonlight’.

The poem begins with the absence of silence even on the moon and the

time is considered an alien. The warmness of the Sun at the high noon is the

faint dust of fear. The Bush fire brings death and chares the bone. One stares

at the sockets black with flame. Men who glance the destruction must leave

his humanity and identity. The destruction of the fire and the brutality

threatens the soul and makes them to look long for the souls that wear the

chains of the day. Because every soul is lost in this landscape of charcoal and

moonlight.

Dream

Judith Wright had a dream for Australia, that is, that Australians as a

whole would identify with the pioneering spirit. She considers Australia as

the landscape of the dream work of imperialism. Travelling in the night time

is an obscure tide. Travelling in a strange night she finds the barrenness of the

land and is caught by the silence of the land. She is of the view that who ever

travels ‘must move fed by love’. Travelling symbolized with colonialism

could leave only destruction from head to heart. ‘The Towering Tree of

blood’ conveys the ecological destruction and Wright addresses it typically

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‘O Dying tree’. The poet wishes to travel taking the lead from the road of

blood. Wright says that it is a dream that she made out of her triple dream.

The journey of the poet continues ‘to find the unsought rose’. The poet is of

the view that out of silence, silence grows. Wright says that she is devoured

by the silence of the night.

Eli Eli

The poem is Christian in character and brings in many biblical

references and connotations. The title of the poem evokes the cavalry

atmosphere of pathos. The title is taken from Mathew 27:46 : “Eli, Eli lama

Sabachtani? which means ‘My God, My God, Why has thou Forsaken me?’.

From this Wright enumerates the paradoxes in the failure of Christ’s death.

She explores the cosmic dimensions of Christ’s death. She provides an

interior voice to acute pain and pathos in life. Wright conveys Soldiers,

elders, women and children drowning in the river was the cross of pain to

Jesus Christ. Knowing their death and inability to save them is the real wound

than the wounds inflicted on his body. The poem brings in the interior

anguish of the central character voiced in muted soliloquy. It throws a

challenge to the consciousness of the readers. The world fails to understand

the death of Christ and terribly fails to understand the salvation and its

relevance. The poem brings in the theological aspects of salvation and the

failure of humanity. But the redemption takes place only through ignorance,

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neglect, fear or apathy. These things make the people mindlessly selfish.

Wright decries the mindless selfishness in a secular society:

To hold out love and know they would not take it,

to hold out faith and know they dared not take it-

the invisible wand, and none would see or take it,

all he could give, and there was none to take it-

thus they betrayed him, not with the tongue’s betrayal.

(Judith Wright Poems.45).

As the Divine savior of the world Jesus Christ remained powerless knowing

the fate of the people. Wright says as a man Christ is limited to time and

place of the cross. Challenging the dependency of the people, Wright from

an Anthropological perspective says that the 20th century humans are masters

of their destiny and they actively save themselves: “they themselves could

save them” (45). Wright avers the catholic doctrine that salvation is

automatic. One must do good work besides going along with current religious

or political times. Wright infers that the humanity must respond to divinity

irrespective of time and place. The salvation won through religion has to find

co relation with the details of regular life. Wrights ends the poem with line:

“he knew there was no river” (45).

The Killer

"The Killer" begins with a fall into a creek. A snake is seen and fear is

felt. She tries to kill it: "O beat him into the ground/O strike him till he dies."

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The snake is black and red and as he dies, "His icy glance turns outward."

However the snake-killer soon realizes that her enemy is not the snake but

fear itself.

The images used by Judith Wright clearly portray a snake and its death.

Her poem has seven four line stanzas with the second and fourth lines

rhyming. It is interesting to note that the fourth stanza does not rhyme. In this

stanza, the snake dies, which is the turning point in the story. After the snake

dies, "the killer" is actually the person who is afraid. This poem has two

similes in the first stanza: to describe the day "clear as fire" and the birds'

song, "frail as glass." Alliteration is used as in "lips to the live water" in verse

2. However it is the poet's use of adjectives throughout which really makes

the images realistic. Judith Wright's treatment of the subject matter is serious

in this poem. This poem encourages readers to think differently about life. It

is the fear that becomes the problem, not the snake. She shows that it is the

fear in our minds that must be overcome and not things in the outside world.

THE GATEWAY

In 1953, Judith Wright published her third anthology, The Gateway, in

which she developed her own poetic perspective on Australia. The poems

collected in this work create several kinds of images about a gateway

symbolizing the moment and place that every existence changes. The poet

constructs a tense panorama of many scenes; the austere drought and flood in

Australia, the death of the creatures and human beings, some legends and

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myth about death and rebirth, and human spiritual resurrection through love.

The influence of European poets is seen in the way she incorporates

metaphysical devices in her poems, the use of which creates both ambivalent

feelings and ambiguous attitudes towards contrastive themes and ideas.

Death-in-life versus life-in-death taking place in the Australian wilderness

makes her insight deeper, and terror versus relief in our human feelings

pervades in the poems' lines. The difficult adventures and toilsome

colonization by immigrants left their offspring fruits of their harvest contrasts

with the lives of aboriginals who were sacrificed by the whites' colonization

but who can still recount the legends that have continued to provide power

enough to survive. These patterns of life echo throughout Judith Wright's

poetry.

Eroded Hills

In this poem, written in 1950, she described the de-forested scenery of

the New England area of New South Wales where she grew up.

These hills my father's father stripped and beggars to the winter wind

they

crouch like shoulders naked and whipped humbled, abandoned, out of

mind...

when the last leaf and bird go, let my thoughts stand like trees. Here.

Judith Wright wishes that her thoughts could stand like trees

Eroded Hills) (81).

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Birds

‘Birds’ is both a celebration of Judith Wright as a writer and as a

passionate environmentalist. The birds form the central imagination of the

poet. Wright speaks about the simple lives of the birds. The communication

and interaction of the birds with the birds is simple. Beleagured by the

attitudes of the people and the bloody situation, if people can go to the forest

they can experience the melting of the past, present and future. They can

derive solace from the languages available in the forest. The poet confirms

that they can fuse passions into one clear stone and learn the simplicities of

life from the birds:

Then I could fuse my passions into one clear stone

And be simple to my self as the bird is to the bird. (86).

Train Journey

This poem brings to the fore Wright’s perspective of the harsh yet

vulnerable landscape of Australia. This poem might have been the outcome

of her imagination as Judith travelled through out the Armidale landscape and

her increasing sense of belongingness to that country.

As Wright looked out onto the drought-stricken landscape on that train

journey towards Armidale through the foothills of the Moonbis in 1942,

Wright says she became “sharply aware of it as 'my country’”. This is again

reminded in the passage in her poem “Train Journey”, published in The

Gateway in 1953, where she writes, “I looked and saw under the moon's cold

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sheet/ your delicate dry breasts, country that built my heart”. A male poet

could not have written with such tenderness of the harsh yet fragile

Australian landscape. Far from needing to “transcend her womanliness”,

Judith Wright brought to Australian poetry a vision and understanding of her

country and its peoples that is unique, one enriched by her woman's

perspective.

Old House

The poem expresses regret for the lost opportunity and a call to rectify

the wrongs of the past with a more enlightened attitude. For the poet, “my

great-great-grandfather heard them with one part of his mind” (line 20). He

had the blinkered view, the limited invaders and settler’s view in seeing the

land as his sole possession as one of the dominators. Now as a member of

that same New England family, the poet expresses her regret that the New

England Aborigines’ rights were so trampled upon and their lives wasted. In

making reparations for past injustices, she urges, Australians too can still

obtain a salvation of sorts.

Within her pastoralist family, Judith Wright had a dream for Australia,

that is, that Australians as a whole would identify with the pioneering spirit of

the early pioneers and their love of the land so they would care for it in the

present.We also find many references to transcendence and salvation. We

also find that poetic tropes and metaphors can ignite faith by imaging

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humanity's perennial longing for regeneration, rejuvenation, transfiguration

and salvation.

Drought Year

‘Drought Year’ is among Wright’s most distinctively Australian poems

because of its use of plants, animals, and sites specific to Australia. As such,

the poem serves as an excellent introduction to modern poetry. The poem’s

narrator finds herself witness to a drought in the Australian outback, a

witnessing that becomes a warning, one repeatedly punctuated by the cries of

dingoes, wild dogs indigenous to Australia. Wright represents the drought as

nature, powerful and intimidating, a nature to be avoided. At the same time,

the animals and plants subject to the drought represent another side of nature:

nature as victim—except, that is, the poem’s wagtail, an Australian bird

taking advantage of the drought’s killing fields by pecking out the eyes in a

‘seething skull’. While Wright’s drought is, in no uncertain terms, a hellish

matter, the multiple kinds of nature she portrays (frightful drought, tormented

animals, opportunistic wagtail) render nature too complex to easily sum up.

This is most likely the reason Wright selected the dingoes’ enigmatic cries as

the poem’s recurrent and eerie motif.

THE TWO FIRES

Searchlight Practice

This poem is very simplistic in its approach and it speaks of the things

occurring in nature. The person sitting alone on a peaceful night

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contemplating the realities and beauties of nature. Sometimes everything

seems so simple when the nature is at peace with itself. We can learn a lot of

things from nature, like being peaceful and to be self-reliant and be able to

throw the burden on the Earth for bearing us:

To let the Earth bear us

Like a flower or a stone

Every living being would want to be considered a flower and no one a stone.

At sometime or the other everyone wishes to enjoy peace in life by letting all

the burdens pass away.

Nameless Flower

This poem is about a ‘nameless flower’, which has got no biological

identification. The flower discussed in this poem is so pure and so full of its

own beauty.

Three white petals float

above the Green

The colour contrast is beautiful to be present in a single flower as it is very

rare to see this combination. The poet tries to give a name to the flower but

finally she fails in doing so as she cannot give a fitting name to the flower

and justify its beauty.

The poet's ability to set “a word upon a word” which allows for

evanescent, nameless events and things – in this case, a botanically

unidentified white flower – becomes meaningful:

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 Flakes that drop at the flight of a bird and have no name,

I'll set a word upon a word to be your home.

Many of her best poems are, like ‘Nameless Flower’, deeply intimate, yet at

the same time seem to proceed from a place in the mind, which is not

subjective and, indeed, is even impersonal. Experience goes hand in hand

with the way that this seemingly impersonal requirement is borne by

language and by an awareness of the limited place of human consciousness in

the wider world – is handled and brought to fruition. Such understanding is

not a matter of intention but of immersion.

Landscapes

This is a poem about landscapes and the various things that are hidden

underneath the ground. The life that is present in the landscape rejuvenates

the landscape and keeps it alive. It is said through this poem that the people

really come to know the nature of the land that they are living in only once

they are dead because then they become a vital part of it:

To look at landscapes loved by the newly dead

Is to move into the dark and out again. (141).

The Cup

The poet says that the usual cup, which is hung over the sink, is not

really dead because it comes alive every time some person comes to fill it and

have a drought. To overcome the troubles in life we have to let the silence

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travel in our heart and brain by every track of nerve and vein, so that we are

no longer in trouble and we find peace.

Request to a year

The gift that the poet proposes to ask of the year is the attitude that the

‘poet’s great-great-grandmother possessed.’ This grandmother had eight

children and she took up the hobby of painting pictures only once they were

all grown up. Once when she was painting sitting on the banks of a riverbed,

she suddenly saw that her second son was almost on the verge of falling in to

a waterfall. The boy’s sister was trying to pull her brother out of the water

and she herself was almost in trouble as her heavy frocks acted as a barrier

for the rescue. The grandmother resignedly sketched this scene. The poet asks

that if it is possible for the year to think of trying to provide her with an

attitude just like her grandmother.

Request to a year is not part of her much-feted scenic nationalistic

canon. Deceptively casual, it demonstrates her craft; the discipline, wit, grace

of expression and, above all, her gift with images.

It is a way of reflecting what her life must have felt like; surrounded by

disasters and horrors and unable to directly contain, confront or control them.

It places you there on the spot; watching your child drift away on an ice floe.

What do you do? Shriek ... run up and down—all very understandable—but it

won't solve the problem. The common understanding of this poem centers on

its heartlessness.

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 The mother in the poem has let the boy go exploring, to find himself

and the world, and when he gets into trouble she's too far away to do

anything except give him “life through art”, so to speak. The essence is, an

artist—or anyone else for that matter—cannot give way to self-indulgent

helplessness.

At Cooloolah

In At Cooloolah (1955), Wright recalls her grandfather "beckoned by a

ghost - / a black accoutered warrior ... /who sank into bare plain, as now into

time past" and cold history halts her enjoyment: Love and fear often come

together in Wright's poetry. So too do love and guilt. This is especially

evident when she engages with the issue of European 'invasion': "I know that

we are justified only by love, / but oppressed by arrogant guilt, have room for

none." The ambiguity extends further when she confirms the lesson admitted

by cultural anthropologists: the conquerors become the conquered!

Those dark-skinned people who once named Cooloolah

knew that no land is lost or won by wars,

for earth is spirit: the invader's feet will tangle

in nets there and his blood be thinned by fears. (At Cooloolah)

This poem from The Two Fires (1955) deals with black-white

relationships from a new angle.

BIRDS

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 The poems in Judith Wright’s volume Birds have long been recognized

as among the best-loved poems written in Australia. Many people have

grown up with the beguiling rhythms of 'Black Cockatoos', or the jauntiness

of 'The Wagtail'.

Judith Wright’s poems on birds are probably the most important

contribution she made to Poetry. Her many birds demonstrate ethical

relevance to her era, as creatures in their own right demonstrating nature’s

amazing resilience and directionality. For birds do demonstrate an enviable

logic in building their habitats and brooding young with an almost

anthropological feeling and longing for life.

The thirty poems in Birds record many and various emotions: wonder,

enchantment, embarrassment, insight, and at times irony. Wright finds delight

when she relates to the natural species in their natural behaviors and their

simple conformity with life’s directionality,

The Peacock

This poem is about a beautiful peacock locked up in a dirty cage by the

aldermen. The poet says that the blue and the copper colours of the feathers

of the peacock are loosing their luster because of age and for the reason of

being confined to a small place.

In “Peacock,” she is critical of the absent aldermen who deny dignity

to the ever-beautiful peacock in its dirty cage. Despite being trapped there for

the idle entertainment of human eyes, ever-resistant and Phoenix-like, nature

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rises above it all, as she muses: “Love clothes him still, in spite of all”. Her

anthropomorphism was not just idle whimsy or heavy-handed ethical

mandating. Her overall purpose was to whet a social conscience about the

natural environment.

Winter Kestrel

The Kestrel cries out to the Sun to come out of his hiding and provide

him with some light to hunt, so that the bird can satiate its hunger. The bird

also promises a share of the blood of the prey it will be able to catch, to the

Sun, if it is successful in its mission.

The Poem 'Winter Kestrel' explores the life of birds and fundamental

issues of human frailty. In this poem we can also see Wright’s responsiveness

to the natural world.

Egrets

This poem describes the scene of a serene pool and the presence of

thirty egrets wading through it. The setting for the poem is a quiet evening,

when there was no activity around except for the Egrets moving in the water.

The poet had her fill of then scene and the description of the white Egret

birds against the background of a dark pool is wonderful.

Judith Wright was a long-term advocate for the Aboriginal people of

Australia. She was also very aware of the country and its splendours. This is

where she is at this moment in time as she writes about the Egrets. The water

is jet-black due partially to the vegetation growing around and in it, the depth

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of the water plays some part here too. The Egrets are a beautiful bird; their

white feathers in stark contrast to the colour of the water. There is no

reference here to Aboriginal people but to the beauties of natures to be

preserved, admired and respected.

By using one's own imagination it's easy to see the sight of these

beautiful birds and to feel the peace that Judith Wright felt at this moment.

The beauty of nature is shown through this poem. Wright did love Australian

landscapes but she says herself that her poetry cannot be read in isolation to

the context of Australian society and this poem is one that goes further then

simply talking about the role of Australian flora and fauna in Australian

identity. This poem is a metaphor in both the inferential and the literal

meaning of the words, yet there is the inferential meaning being allotted more

interesting to analyze. It is easier to show by working backwards. The poem

is an example of white Australian society and the journey by some to reflect

on the history of the nation in relation to the Aboriginal past, and the ignorant

attitudes of other members of a predominantly white society. The symbolism

"quiet evening" sets the mood of the poem. From this line the solitude, peace

and simplicity in both the surrounding landscape as well as the mindset of the

persona. Line two "I saw a pool, jet black and mirror still" this line is filled

with symbolism needed to be unravelled in order for the reading to be

understood. ‘Pool’ has the direct connotation of water as a symbol of

cleansing. "Jet black" has two meanings. The black not only symbolizes

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Aboriginality but also depth, the amplitude of Aboriginal history. Line 3 must

be taken in as a whole. It is a metaphor within itself with the paperbacks

symbolizing the majority of white society. The final lines of this verse reveal

the 30 egrets, symbolic of the whites that are willing to reflect, as they are

wading through the pool of reflection in a peaceful and composed mindset.

This poem foregrounds themes of aboriginal identity, white ethnocentric

views as well as the liberation of rejecting white supremacy and embracing

another culture.

Magpies

The poet says in this poem that at first glance the Magpies are full of

Grace, but once they find food their grace is replaced by their greed taking

over them. The poet feels that the Magpies cannot be compared with any

other living beings on this Earth because they sing songs with full of grace

and dignity which no other being can exhibit.

‘Their Greed is brief; their joy is long’

This poem holds a lot of meaning in it and it speaks more about the

good qualities of the Magpie in contrast to the human beings who have little

joy and more greed.

The Koel

The life of this bird is portrayed creatively in this poem. The season of

spring and this bird are inseparable as Koel makes this season more

appealing. The poet feels that the birds voice is its only positive characteristic

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as it sings with its heart’s content. This bird has got many troubles in life. It is

a rebel, migrant bird and many people hate it. Although it is an Outcast the

Koel seems to be telling an endless tale with its songs.

Dove--- Love

More graphically, the conventionally sacred doves (who incidentally

were Noah’s messengers of salvation Gen 8:11) provide an ironic revelation

in the little known biological fact that doves in captivity eat flesh. This fearful

paradox reveals the taboo that suburban man of conventional eye and

manicured claw shares the same terrible secret of their dog-eat-dog existence

if pushed to it. Cannibal like, the seemingly innocent dove cooing becomes

the dinner bell to evoke her perceptive observation:

The doves play

on one repetitive note that plucks the raw

helpless nerve their soft, “I do. I do.

I could eat you.

Migrant Swift

Wright’s sympathetic eye for tragedy also appears to great effect when

coming upon the “wreckage” of a migrant swift in its death throes. Having

braved thousands of miles without food and in the wastage of its own body

weight, it had apparently fallen to the earth with a snapped wing exhausted

and cut out of life just as it was within sight of its rightful Eden:

He trusted all to air . . .

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 air’s creatures fed him.

once fallen, there’s no saving / . . . [In this wreckage his]

head still strove to rise

and turn towards the lost impossible spring.

Wright found the migrant swift was a strong image of paradise lost, for

falling short of its destiny through sheer exhaustion and misadventure. In

“Migrant Swift,” her acute nostalgia for “the lost impossible spring”is a

cameo of tenderness and empathy. In an era when she felt traditional values

were being needlessly discarded, nature’s amazing resilience and

directionality offer ready models for human happiness because it is the

natural pattern.

In this call to be mindful of the land, Wright invokes the value of

sympathy for the battler in the bird who has finally lost what it struggled to

attain. Wright used this simple event to prophetic effect, imaging by this

negative event the true spring of fulfillment, survival to reproduce that is the

clear directionality of this bird’s life.

Silver Terns

Wright found nature’s modesty eminently well demonstrated in bird

life. In “Silver Terns”, only the most observant will notice that their hunting

is efficient and hygienic:

you would not guess the blood unless you saw it,

that the waves washed from feather and from scale

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Five Senses

This poem speaks about the life ‘within’ life. When a woman carries a

child there is something very complicated that goes on inside her. The shapes,

the stillness, the moving-a rhythm happens inside. There is no interruption for

this happening as it goes on for a long time. Finally there are sounds- and as

in everything else the events follow a specific pattern. The something is what

makes seeming sense out of all the events that happen to us in a lifetime. Like

the adage, "with age comes wisdom", this poem implies that a pattern and

weaving are taking place within us, and that slowly, as the weaving (like the

forming of a lily) takes shape, things start to reveal themselves, to make

sense, to be comprehended a bit better. Lines 19 and 20 (to me) seem to

justify the fact that we are not in control of our overall dance in life; Fate?

Destiny? The five senses are ours, just like "free choice" is ours. But there is

another force that goes beyond choice...The idea of this exercise is to

deconstruct the given order so that the words can come at you in another

way--or through "other five senses". 'll have a go at looking at the meaning.

Judith Wright seems to be saying that her 5 senses (sight, touch, taste, hearing

seem to gather all she sees inside her and mix themselves into a complete

whole that she can see. Judith does not really understand what has happened

‘follows beyond my knowing’ but she knows the wonder of this mixture as it

turns her senses into an artful world of beauty.

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The lake

The lake is described it its full detail in this poem. The water in the

lake reflects all the things that it catches and there is absolutely no difference

what that object might be- it can be a cloud, leaf or anything else. The water

reflects day and night in its full beauty. The poet says that she wants to cast a

net over the lake- what she means is she is trying to take in the beauty of

everything that the lake is reflecting and yet there is sufficient left to admire.

The poet says that if we look at the lake deeply we can definitely feel as if it

is looking back at us.

For my daughter

The poet feels that once the children are grown, they leave their

mother’s side and find their own. They have to learn the worldly way, in turn

to be accepted by the world. As a mother, the poet asks her daughter what she

expects from her mother now that she is completely grown up. The mother

cannot think of a world without the daughter as a key part of it but still must

learn to spend her days and try to make her own world because this is what

the daughter wants from her. Love is the strong emotion that keeps pulling

the mother towards her daughter and the poet here compares this emotion to a

lion. The poet says that unless this emotion is tamed it is difficult for a

mother to exist sanely. This emotion can only be tamed but cannot be killed

completely. The mother is portrayed as the ‘giver’ and the daughter as that of

a ‘taker’ in this poem.

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The Diver

This poem speaks of a diver’s act of diving into the pool. At first he

pauses on the tower, then draws in the breath and dives with a lot of courage.

Each time a diver dives in to a pool he needs a lot of courage, as with a small

mistake he will be dead. Once the diver marks his curve in the water he

emerges from it and has to do the whole act again. This speaks of the

challenges a person faces in life from birth to death and how each one should

be faced with the same hope, attention and care as the first one. Judith

Wright's imagery is expressed with that strong simple language and subtle

passion which has earned her an international reputation.

The Other Half

A Child with A dead Animal

When a person witness’s death there is an automatic emotion of feeling

sad and lamenting. We realize the shortness, the temporary thing that life is

only when we witness death. In a moment death changes a living creature

into a ‘thing’ and it is forsaken to become one with the earth. This realization

makes the person sadder. The glimpse of death is not which one can erase

easily from one’s memory. It finds its way into the innermost cores of one’s

being to be alive there forever.

To Another Housewife

In Judith Wright's poem, ‘To Another Housewife’, change occurs as

the fundamental motif. The composer has harnessed a variety of language

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techniques to promote these changes. "To Another Housewife" is a dramatic

monologue that talks about the changes in the values and responsibilities of a

girl as she matures into adulthood. Judith Wright has written this to highlight

the fact that many people are in this situation.

Wright uses contrast and juxtaposition to outline this change in values

when the girl who had at one time despised seeing death ("with tomahawk

and knife we hacked/ at flyblown tatters of old meat") has come to associate

with it daily ("these hands with love and blood imbrued"). Both cases

symbolize violence.

Homecoming

“Homecoming” is about bringing the dead soldiers home from the

Vietnam War. This poem is about a male surfer who finds his love and

happiness in the ocean – the ocean is his second home. Personification is also

used throughout this verse when the jets are described as “noble” and

onomatopoeia is used with the word “whining. “Homecoming” is about the

sorrow and emptiness that becomes a part of War.

Eve To Her Daughters

This Poem Reflect Feminist thought and is written with women’s

words. We think that the “Daughters” all are women that have lived and died,

and will live and die. We interpret it as if it’s Eve who is telling how Adam

became after they had been dismissed from the Garden of Eden. He wants to

make Earth easier to live in, which means that he invents cars, escalators and

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other things. But Adam in this Poem is not Adam, it is men. Judith Wright

writes that, “Perhaps the whole secret is that nothing exists but our faults.”

Alive

This is a poem, which conveys the message that in any life form what

matters is not size but form (the inner thing). The poet says that even a single

drop of water, when seen under a microscope has life in it. The throbbing,

striving life when seen through the living eyes of a person seems to be

sending the message that in any life form what usually matters is not the size,

because even a single cell contains a lot of life in it, but what really is inside

the cell is real energy ready to burst, which is the base for many theorems.

That ‘inner thing’ is really important for any person to possess.

Picture

This poem is about how two different people perceive the different

things that nature has on hold. The younger person in the poem when trying

to paint a picture of a landscape gives it all the different bright hues in turn

making it youthful. The same landscape when seen through the eyes of a

more mellowed person is quite different. Being mature, the person is more

close to reality and in turn can also perceive the picture as it once used to be.

‘In what he paints, I see the Earth I once used to know’ the poet means

that the way she sees nature is very different from what other people see it

(especially the younger ones).

Black/white

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 This poem takes a philosophical turn right from the beginning. The

poet seems to be saying that right from the time we are born we play with

both sides of life (i.e.) life and death. Sometimes even in life we experience

death. The poet uses the words

‘Pro-biotics’ and ‘Anti-biotics’

This shows that there is a very thin line existing between life and

death.

Envy

Wright calls envy every artist’s inescapable sin. She says this because

only an artist can really know the value or creativity of the other artist’s

work. Especially, Wright says through her poem, when an artist (a poet)

compares his/her work with her contemporary writer’s work, then they can

really experience this feeling to its fullest extent. But Wright says that one

can fulfill all that he wanted to be only after they’re dead. The most

unimaginable things can be fulfilled here. The poet says that a person reaches

heaven or hell through what they’ve been mostly after their entire lives. She

says…

“Lightest power of what we’ve been”

Growing-point

The poet here compares the growing-point of a small sapling to the real

growth of a person (maturity). Just as a sapling gathers strength and pushes

itself to grow and slowly attains enough strength, form, completion and bears

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fruit later on, just so a person also should not set limits to reach heights he

deserves to reach. The poet seems to be saying that a person can learn a lot of

lessons from looking in to the life of a tree to aid his own growth as a

complete person.

Tightropes

This poem is about how every person should have focus on what he is

doing. In the beginning of the poem, the poet says that cultivating a habit of

having focus on the ultimate goals is the best possible thing for a person. By

the time the poem comes to the end, the realization is different. The poet

going through different phases in life comes to the conclusion that taking one

step at a time is far better than visualizing the whole goal and striving

towards it. The inbuilt spirit, which is formed by taking tiny, measured steps

towards the final goal; helps a person reach his destiny.

Evaluating the themes of all these poems, it is very much pertinent

assess the personality of Judith Wright to understand the creation of

Aboriginal identity in her poetry. As an activist, poet and prophet Judith

Wright has become almost part of the fabric of Australia. She has succeeded

in dispelling the European perspectives to understand the strange beauty and

landscape of Australia. She has tried in making the readers understand the

splendour of nature and the terror of colonial history of Australia. Combining

the mystical and political, she has acknowledged, celebrated and redeemed

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the lives of Australians. She pleaded the Australians to hear the spirit of the

land and the Aboriginals to realize just and humane future.

As a poet Judith Wright is guided by the mission and duty to the

society. She has firmly believed that the truth in the society resides in the

imagination. She believed in the possibilities for potential existence and

considered these things as vital in the evolution of the society to which every

poet has to subscribe. Judith Wright in the article “ Meaning, Value, And

Poetry” observes: “The Poet may, as himself a vital creative force, serve

these possibilities and even help to shape and deliver them; but since they are

of the nature of growth and change, he cannot lay down any blueprints for

achieving them, or impose on them any already-existent form… His hope

must then lie not in society but rather in humanity, and in those human

possibilities that ‘society’ is often organized to exclude” (Meanjin Quarterly.

No.113. vol. 27. 1968. p. 244). Guided by these objectives she remained

committed to the world of possibilities knowing the human ends in the

divine. Committed to this perspective, she developed profound respect for

ordinary Australian lives. She fought for developing ethical and gracious

sense of human dignity and professed it as an essential world view. In the

process of promoting this world view, she joined the campaign for a treaty

with Aboriginals. She authored critical historical works We Call For A

Treaty and The Cry for the Dead to illustrate her efforts of social activism.

She perceived that the poet is a public figure with responsibility who

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challenges the negative forces that demean human life and environment.

Gerard Hall in Judith Wright (1915-2000) : Australian Poet & Prophet

(2000) elucidating the significant thematic aspects of her crucial poems

observes : “ the truth of her life is that she was both artist and activist; the

values celebrated in her poetry are the same values she fought for in the

political arena. She was always the ‘ethical prophet’, calling Australia and

Australians to renounce ‘pride, greed and ignorance’ in favour of a spiritual

vision since, as she put it, ‘without a vision a nation perishes’” (27). It is

understood that on the public front Wright had appreciated the attempts of

Whitlam Govt. in promoting environment and Aboriginal issues. Wright’s

influence on the declaration of the Great Barrier reef as a Marine national

Park and her campaign for the end of mining on Fraser Island are considered

as examples for her genuine representation of Aboriginals.

Judith Wright’s critics have denounced her poetry as a mere

representation of politics. They complained that Wright’s poetry suffered

from the limitations of confining to the landscape, country, flora and fauna.

Critics like Evan Jones, R.F. Brissenden, Peter Coleman argued that Wright

was in danger of sacrificing her poetry to her political concerns. But these

accusations are refuted in the argument of Judith Wright presented in her

Preoccupations in Australian Poetry (1966) where she emphasizes : “ the

true function of an art and a culture is to interpret us to ourselves, and to

relate us to the country and the society in which we live” (xviii). Beyond her

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confirmation, one need to understand that Wright hailed from a pastoral

family and experienced the trauma of the war times. So the themes of her

poetry naturally purported the life and development of culture as a whole.

She moved away from the narrow concepts of the world and provided a

linguistic turn to contemporary philosophy, science, mathematics and arts.

Veronica Brady in her article ‘Judith Wright: the Politics of Poetics”

observed: “Wright was in fact more sophisticated intellectually than many of

her critics” (Southerly. Vol.61. No.1. 2001. P.84). As a conscious poet

Wright has moved with older generation of poets. She had met Jack

McKinney at one of the gatherings of Meanjin group at C.B. Christesen’s

home. Following the attempts of elders to rethink the world, Wright has

moved away from the narrow concerns of poetry.

In view of the elucidation of some popular poems from different

anthologies, it would be a fallacy to ascribe that the entire poetry of Wright is

explicitly sociological. But her poetry cannot be termed as propagandist. The

interpretation of Aboriginal subjectivity and characters cannot be considered

as appropriate representations. Wright’s attempt is only to construct

harmony between Aboriginals and Whites in Australia. She has symbolized

Aboriginal people’s unity with the environment and the invasion they are

forced to endure. Some of her poems ‘the Eucalypt and the National

Character’, ‘Bullocky’ are viewed in the light of post pastoral eco poetry.

Terry Gifford in the article ‘ Judith Wright’s Poetry and the Turn to the Post-

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Pastoral’ says that Wright’s poetry has to be reread as a work of colonial

patriotic pastoral poetry. He says: “ A re-reading of Judith Wright’s poem

‘the Ecualypt and the National character’… offer the opportunity to clarify

the way in which post colonialism needs a post-pastoral theory of ecopoetry.

But first it is interesting to note a tendency to read Wright’s work as colonial

patriotic pastoral and the problems such reading make evident”. (Ecological

Humanities. 48. May 2010).

Among all the poems of Wright only few poems ‘Bora Ring’,

‘Nigger’s Leap, New England’, and ‘Half –Caste Girl’ are considered as

strikingly representative Aboriginal poems. Wright makes an attempt to

reappraise Aboriginal culture. When we compare the content of these poems

with other poems the distinctiveness becomes obvious. These poems exhibit a

profound sense of history, sense of place and appreciation of the environment

in Aboriginal culture. Wright’s observation on the pre and post conquest of

Aboriginal culture is considered as her heart’s cry. G. A. Brennan in the

article ‘The Aborigine in the works of Judith Wright’ says : “ this reminds us

that the cry of the falling Aboriginal is not only the cry of his passing

culture, but of ours too. His death, and the death of his people are an ominous

reminder of our own ephemerality” (Westerly, No.4. December. 1972. P.48).

Critics have felt that to Judith Wright Aborigine is a symbol of

repressed Australian fear and guilt. Aborigine is purely a poetic symbol of

historical injustice. Aboriginal critics have considered Wright’s engagement

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with Aboriginal subjectivity merely philosophical and artistic. They have

argued that Wright’s social consciousness is merely artistic. This is

substantiated from her personal interview. Wright has admitted that she did

not have direct contact with Aborigines during her youth. She has observed:

“There were very few Aborigines around us at the time, though some passed

through and some worked for us. The Bora ring of the poem was on my

uncle’s place…But, we were not allowed to know Aborigines in…terms of

friendship… The first Aboriginal friend I had was Kath Walker” (Personal

interview with Judith Wright, Canberra, July, 1982). Even the awareness of

historical guilt as a symbolic expression in her poetry is her own developed

perspective. She says: “To say that we had been the murderers was not a

popular view at the time! Nobody mentioned Aborigines at all in my youth. I

didn’t even know there was a dying pillow… Quite certainly there was guild.

That’s why there was so little said” (Personal interview with Judith Wright,

Canberra, July 1982). In view of her opinions, even the few poems that

celebrated Aboriginality cannot be considered as explicit representations of

Aboriginal culture. It is pertinent to observe that her poetry is atonement for

the European invasion. Her poetry is considered as an element of harmony

between Aboriginals and Whites in Australia. Her Aboriginal poems profess

a fresh sympathy, new recognition and required synthesis. ‘Half Caste Girl’

is a poem that signifies this fresh synthesis. ‘Half Caste Girl’ is:

is restless still under her rootwarm cover,

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 hearing the noise of living,

forgetting the pain of dying.

( Moving Image. 27)

In practically overcoming the obstacles that come in the way of realizing

fresh synthesis Wright presents the potential solution in her prose work The

Generations of Men (1959). Wright says: “Until the white men could

recognize and forgive that deep and festering consciousness of guilt in

themselves, they would not forgive the blacks for setting it there”

( Generations of Men. 1959. P. 156). She clarifies the ambivalent view of the

Aboriginals in the poems ‘The Dust in the Township’ and ‘The Blind Man’.

Wright evokes tender Aboriginal oneness with the land to erase the sense of

historical guilt. From the themes of these poems, it is obvious that she has

introduced new sensibility to Aboriginal theme but it is facilitated as part of

the larger aesthetic, moral and philosophical issues.

The concern of Wright for Aboriginal issues has transformed from

persuasiveness to authentic representation. Her symbolic identification

present in poetry has become active engagement. She became an active agent

in asserting the rights of Aborigines. In her speech at the Adelaide Festival

Writers conference, she spoke ferociously about the dispossession of the

Aborigines and their pathetic situation. She asserted: “have been my own

chief social concerns, but I don’t think they have done my work as a poet any

harm whatever. Indeed, both have provided a spur to writing, and deepened

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my own knowledge and perceptions in many ways” (Overland, No, 89,

October 1982. PP 29-31).

Judith Wright’s engagement with Aboriginality as a subject of her

writings and activism has not suffered inconsistency. The engagement of the

writers and activists with Aboriginality during 1945-61 was confined to

extreme empathic and sensitive identification. In Poetry, Aboriginal themes

were springboards for profound moral questioning. The post 1960s received

sincere commitment in the very conceptions of Aborigines. Judith Wright’s

writings particularly prose writings transcended from the metaphysical

concerns to the realization of Aborigines as reservoirs and exemplifications

of humanity. Wright’s writings have exemplified the treatment of Aborigines

extremely well during this period. However, Wright’s conception, realization

and presentation of Aboriginality is found to be lacking in doing complete

justice to Aboriginality. This particular phase is addressed as an ambiguous

phase as most of the writers struggled to absorb the theme of Aboriginality

but failed terribly in providing appreciable representations of Aboriginal

culture. It was also considered that personal contact with Aboriginals was not

a barometer for authorial authenticity. However, this situation has paved the

way for the intriguing assimilation that produced mixed Aboriginal identity

only to subscribe and satisfy the Global perception. Sally Moran’s

Autobiographies My Place & Wannamurganya as the appropriate examples

of mixed Aboriginal identities will be discussed in the following chapter.

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