Asian Australian Poetry
Thesis - People can experience a sense of disconnection from their culture when they struggle to understand who they are in modern, multicultural Australia. Through Asian Australians’ poetry, we see their struggles with identity and their questioning of where they belong, which the poets express through their stories. “New accents “ Ouang Yu has shown a personal experience, expressing the multicultural differences and stereotypes with new accents in Australia. “Home” by Mirum Wei Wei Lo, explores the understanding of where she belongs and whether she is truly home in Australia. Furthermore, both poets explore cultural isolation in our contemporary society.
Poem 1 The poem New Accents challenges the Australian identity showing the multicultural differences in
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It helps the audience empathise with how minor mistake they need to make to be ridiculed and alienated this poem effectively demonstrates the different experiences of disconnection that multicultural Australians can feel.
Poem 2
The poem “Home” by Wei Wei Lo emphasises her belief that "home" is an abstract concept that can represent different things to different individuals rather than merely a physical location. “The dark bitter words of my heart” The metaphor suggests that the pain is deeply rooted and the anger comes from her heart. This deep-rooted pain shows the audience that she is struggling with her sense of disconnection due to her lack of understanding of where she belongs. Though a person that struggles to understand themselves can often feel disconnected from their culture, if they find themselves, they can often reconnect to their identity and culture.
The poet describes her journey of reestablishing her linguistic connections to her ancestors and cultural history as a transcendental, spiritual experience that takes place outside of the material
In the poem, ‘Shame’ by Kevin Gilbert, it exemplifies stereotypes and the prejudice surrounding Aboriginal Australians in a more modern-day Australia. Lines like ““Shame” when we live on the riverbanks, while collectin’ our welfare cheques”, shows White Australia’s many existing prejudices around Aboriginal peoples’ ways of life. The way that our country has treated our first nation’s peoples has embedded a sense of shame within Indigenous Australians for living their lives differently. The repetition of the word ‘shame’ reinforces this idea of the shame felt by Aboriginal Australians and illustrates the constant reminder that Indigenous Australians should be ashamed of their ways of life, despite white Australia’s major role in perpetuating dangerous stereotypes around our First nations people. However the ending line “
HOW TEXTS OFFER SIMILAR YET DIVERSE PERSPECTIVES ON INDIGENOUS AUSTRALIANS’ EXPERIENCES The experiences Indigenous Australians go through impact their struggle to keep their cultural practises, land, rights and traditions alive. The specific 4 texts, ‘The Rabbits’ picture book by Shaun Tan, ‘No more boomerang’ by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, The Aboriginal Equation by Tamika Worrell and ‘Racism is Destroying the Australian Dream’ publicly stated by Stan Grant all tell different perspectives on Aboriginal peoples’ experiences while all having a main similarity; Something being taken away. The Rabbits, by John Marsden and Shaun Tan, is a picture book showing the Aboriginal people’s perspective towards the British Colonisers taking over their land and affecting the Indigenous people.
The essay will consider the poem 'Practising' by the poet Mary Howe. It will explore how this poem generates its meaning and focus by analysing its techniques, metaphorical construct and its treatment of memory. The poem can primarily be seen to be a poem of missed opportunity. In this way is comes to form, alongside other poems of Howe's a study about a certain kind of loss and the recuperative efforts of memory, alongside the certainty of the failure of this recuperation. The paper will begin by giving a context to the poem with regard to Howe's life and work and will then proceed to analyse it directly, drawing attention to how it can be seen to fulfil this thesis about its content and meaning.
In his collection of poems Broken Teeth, author Tony Birch explores Melbourne’s past from British Settlement to the present day. Within his poems “‘My Words’, Beruk (Ngamajet) -1835”, “Beruk Watches Melbourne from the Sky -1945” and “Visiting”, Birch creates a connected image of the city’s past through exploring snapshots of different time periods within Melbourne’s rich, diverse history. Birch’s poems also identify the strong links between the city’s past and its present, reviving the strong historical and cultural factors that influenced Melbourne’s creation. Tony Birch’s Poem “‘My Words’, Breuk (Ngamajet)- 1835”, depicts the history of the colonisation of Melbourne, as told through the eyes of prominent Indigenous leader William Barak
Acknowledging the wrongs against Indigenous communities in Australia is critical, as this poem shows. The Stolen Generation was a dark chapter in Australia’s history that still affects Indigenous peoples today. From the late 1800s to the 1970s, thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their families by the Australian government. The policy was designed to assimilate Indigenous children into White Australian culture, and many suffered abuse and neglect.
Introduction A form of literature using a series of techniques, Poetry evokes meaning like no other form of writing. Poetry in Australia seeks to recall stories and truths through its richness and diversity. The subject of belonging by means of migration is prominent in many poetic works, but none more so than in the pieces created by Bruce Dawe and Peter Skrzynecki. Exploring the same theme, the poems are written from opposite perspectives.
Furthermore, “Recognised by accents Partitioned off at night By memories of hunger and hate.” Adequately depicts, via diction, how migrants have commonalities in cultural background or prior experiences, allowing them to connect with one another and establish a suitable, personal feeling of belonging. Moreover relationships, experiences are as well highlighted throughout the poem, specifically through the shared experiences which all the immigrants transmit. “We lived like birds of passage” as well as “A barrier at the
These themes have played a constant role in everyone's life throughout history and are especially important in today's society. These themes come to us through imagery and mood, fostering us to look deeper into the individual characters and reflect on their arc throughout the poem and reflect how this
The poem My Mother The Land by Phill Moncrieff poetically describes the struggles the aboriginal people faced with loss of their country, culture, identity, people and place at the hands of the European people and colonisation throughout history. Overall the poem effectively positions the reader to feel sympathy and empathy toward the aboriginal people and strong antipathy towards the European people furthermore it helps the reader understand the importance of country, culture, identity, people and place to the aboriginal
Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s non-traditional view of Australia in ‘An Appeal’ shows how stereotypes of Australia are not always correct. The poem shows how camaraderie and mateship are not always expressed in Australian lifestyle. It is evident in the poem that not all Australians help each other to get through tough times and Australia is divided into different groups of people and is not equal. ‘An appeal’ shows how the nation stands up for themselves and fight for what is right against the power of the ‘not really’ authoritative people of Australia. The concept of inequality is a crucial part of Oodgeroo Noonuccal’s poem ‘An Appeal’.
Poetry Analysis Once the poem “History Lesson” was written numerous poetry foundations celebrated it for many reasons. “History Lesson” not only makes an impact on literature today it has also impacted people also. This poem inspires people and moves them to the point to where they can find a personal connection to the poem itself and to the writer. Not only does it hold emotional value for those who were victimized and those whose family were victimized by the laws of segregation, but the poem is also celebrated for its complexity. The poem uses many techniques to appeal to the reader.
Poem: ‘Be Good, Little Migrants’ Identity Essay The poem, ‘Be Good, Little Migrants’ by Uyen Loewald, thoroughly explores the concept of identity throughout the poem. Uyen Loewald is an Australian migrant of Vietnamese background who has been subjected to racial oppression and degradation when first migrating to Australia. As a result, she created the poem, ‘Be Good, Little Migrants’ to express her emotions of frustration and anger at the plight of new Australian migrants. The poem conveys the notion that migrants of a non-British background, more specifically Vietnamese and Asian, had to discard their own cultural identity.
Likewise, the poem, Migrant Woman on a Melbourne tram, by Jennifer Strauss, establishes barriers of culture through the woman’s conspicuous peculiarity. This further creates a sense of isolation and oppression towards the migrant woman, once again reflecting the difficulties that immigrants endure. Furthermore, Strauss’ deliberate use of metaphor, with the words “Street-names in the glare/leap ungraspably from sight/ formless collisions of letters”, depicts to the audience the difficulties involved with roaming unfamiliar terrains, more specifically Australian landscape. Once again, Strauss conveys to the audience the struggles that an immigrant must overcome when going to a foreign country. However, this time she refers to language barriers and an unfamiliarity with the
The poem “Australia’s Silenced History” was written by Nola Gregory from Western Australia in November 2016 as a response to a powerful and provoking video called “Stan Grant talking about racism and the Great Australian Dream.” The poem was written so that our nation would not forget that Australia has a dark past. The subject of the poem is Australia’s dark history and how it impacted many people. The theme is the importance of respecting and acknowledging our history so it can be dealt with. The subject matter of the poem Australia’s Silenced History is about the shameful history of Australia.
Rina Morooka Mr Valera Language Arts Compare and Contrast essay on “The poet’s obligation”, “When I have fears that I may cease to be”, and “In my craft of sullen art” The three poems, “The poet’s obligation” by Neruda, “when I have fears that I may cease to be” by Keats, and “In my craft of sullen art” by Thomas, all share the similarity that they describe poets’ relationships with their poems. However, the three speakers in the three poems shared different views on their poetry; the speaker in Neruda’s poem believes that his poems which were born out of him stored creativity to people who lead busy and tiring life, and are in need of creativity, while the speaker in Keats’ poem believes that his poems are like tools to write down what