Bruce Dawe 's Poems ' Migrants ' And ' The And A Related Text ' Still Life '

Individuals respond in various ways to transitioning into a new phase of life and society, these transitions can be challenging and confronting. They can also be transformative and thus some individuals accept and others reject because it’ll often initiate a series of consequences that may accelerate one’s personal growth and involuntarily change one’s perspective and/or attitude. These ideas are manifested in J.C Burke’s, ‘The story of Tom Brennan,' a move about the transitions that characters face after an indelible accident. In correspondence to the short story, ‘Neighbours’ by Tim Winton and is about a young couple moving from the city to the village and finding it difficult to reside with the European migrants.

People who share a connection through cultural or social factors often relate well together. This is demonstrated in the poem “Migrant Hostel” through the use of the simile ‘Nationalities sought each other out instinctively like a homing pigeon’, this likens the behaviour of the migrant searching for other people with whom they shared a connection with, to the action of a bird driven by instinct. This shows that by the different

A lack of belonging can destroy a sense of placement in society. This statement is thoroughly explored in the poem, ‘Migrant Hostel’ by Peter Skrzynecki, investigating the concepts of alienation and dislocation through the migrant’s lack of acceptance by the Australian citizens. The migrants are also unable to find a fixed home, and therefore feel no sense of stability or permanence. This transitory nature is best identified in the simile, ‘We lived like birds of a passage/Always sensing a change/In the weather’, where the comparison to birds emphasises the absence of a home. It is clear that the migrants feel unable to adapt to Australian society, constantly moving and never settling. The migrant’s exclusion is further highlighted in the lines,

These constant reminders of differences as well as stereotyping made it incredibly hard for Gouvrnel, Wei-Lei and all migrants to belong somewhere other than what their physical appearance may indicate. By Gouvrnel recalling this story to the readers it make us think and learn about the impact and implications migrants have to face when coming to Australia and the teasing, bulling and hardships they were forced to face. On multiple occasions she recalls being in tears and asking herself why she “couldn’t move back to Delhi,” difference in physical appearance and were we originate serve as indicatory of difference that can result in very stereotypical grouping, making assumptions purely based on looks as well as exclusion, preventing migrants from feeling as if they belong.

Poetry can follow your life all the way through, from the innocence of a child, to the end of your days. The comfort, seduction, education, occasion and hope found in poems are elaborated in Poetry Should Ride the Bus by Ruth Forman. As the poem reads on, you not only travel through the life of a person from adolescence to being elderly through vivid imagery, but also hit on specific genres of poems through the personification of poetry as the characters in the stages of life. This poem’s genres hit on what poetry should do and be, by connecting the life many of us live.

The poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal, draws the realistic image of the confronting realities of alienation and displacement of Indigenous Australians. It is because of such experiences that has empowered Noonuccal to express and advocate learning from experiences by positioning the audience to view the horrors that occurred, creating a platform for her poetry. Through the emphasis of identity, it allows the audience to deeply connect with the past, determining and illustrating a profound link between the ancient past and contemporary present. Oodgeroo’s deep connectivity with art and poetry highlights the importance of learning from experiences, for not only the Aboriginal culture but, for all cultures, and that colonisation does not destroy self-identity. Through the poems The Past and China…Woman, it has allowed the individual to promote change, encouraging the survival of cultures through learning from past experiences

Similarly the idea of Australian life and isolation is depicted in ‘Journey: The North Coast’ where poet is eager to reach home. Perhaps the poet desires to visualise beautiful Australian landscapes as to allow the readers to view the magnificence of flora and fauna in contrast to the man-made destructions. It appears that the poet has been isolated for ‘twelve months’, and Sydney in this case acts as a barrier of poet’s desire towards nature. The title itself symbolises poet’s home and the destination which contradicts to the urban

It is presumed that journeys are uplifting experiences, with the implication that new knowledge and greater insight allow travelers to gain wisdom and solidify a coherent view of the world. Yet, experiences through journeys can result in new knowledge clashing with preconceived beliefs, potentially disabling the traveler’s epistemology. Furthermore, a traveler cannot ignore this conflicting knowledge and return to his prior self at the conclusion of his journey. These themes are explored in Robert Gray’s poems

An individual’s search for identity is fuelled by a need to find a place in the world where we belong, thus not belonging consequently leas to a feeling of alienation and isolation. This notion is explored through May’s journey seeking to connect with her racial heritage, her idea of understanding and acceptance. The old man Graham, May encounters at the mission expresses an Aboriginal perspective on the contemporary relationship between the two societies. “no one to talk about it. And they die, kill em selves, than those governments just put another numba, nother cross in they list. They still trying to do it, kill us of, tell us that its always been they plan.” They hybrid vernacular communicates the hatred through the ethnolect strongly marked by the non –standard features of the pronouns in “they list,” “they plan.” Graham’s diatribe reflects him as an individual demonstrating the marginalisation of the minority groups. Similarly, Armin Greder’s picture book The island demonstrates the notion concerning the duality of belonging with its inherit prejudices and xenophobic attitudes expresses the majority’s deliberate exclusion of ‘the other’ outside

With every journey comes a destination which is dependent on the degree of the individual and their will to potentially better themselves. A journey offers travelers the opportunity to extend themselves physically, intellectually and emotionally as they respond to challenges. Ruby Moon by Matt Cameron is a contemporary fractured fairytale in the form of a play that explores the grim, Australian legend of the missing child. This text portrays real issues in an absurd representation which forces the reader on an imaginative journey as well as the characters in an inner journey to establish an identity. Beach Burial by Kenneth Slessor is a distressing elegy about loss of life through war. Slessor’s sophisticated language, allows the responder to empathise and mourn the wastefulness of life in war while also to appreciate the commonality of human existence. This text highlights the concept of journeying of the soul from both the reader and the responder. Through the use of a variety of visual and written techniques, these texts portray the concept of an existential journey, the indefinite search for true self and true personal meaning in life. Deep loss of an individual or one others’ individuality triggers an existential crisis and without journeying imaginatively, the chance to create one’s purpose becomes absent.

Through the ostracising journey to integration in the Australian society, ‘Migrant Hostel’ depicts the alienation Skrzynecki, his family and thousands of migrants faced. The poem itself depicts a powerful paradox, as the migrants’ primary intention of moving being was to pursue their dreams for an untroubled life when in reality the antithesis was endured. As well as this, the profound motif of a bird is reiterated in

Migrant Hostel by Peter Skrzynecki explores the conditions of migrant hostels in the 20th century. Through vivid descriptions, metaphors and similes, Skrzynecki describes the emotions of the migrants living in the migrant hostels. The simile 'like a homing pigeon' suggests that the people in the migrant hostels were insistent on looking for belonging through an almost instinctive process of being drawn to people of the same or similar background. The metaphor 'partitioned off at night by memories of hunger and hate' implies that the people were vulnerable and were separated from the others by their past and their different history. The simile 'loved like birds of passage - always sensing a change in weather' conveys that the migrants were alert

Journeys allow individuals to fulfil a deeper understanding of a sense of identity by encountering personal struggles, and being faced to overcome cultural barriers. While this process may be difficult to undergo, it provides the individuals an insight to a more preferable future and world to live in. In the poems from Peter Skrzynecki’s Immigrant Chronicle, the poet communicates how individuals are able to grow a further sense of identity and discover perceptions of new cultures by the demanding challenges that they are forced to subdue. The poems ‘Migrant Hostel’ and ‘Ancestors’ reveal that the world is changed by an individual’s perception and attitude. A lack of understanding or desire to overcome these obstacles can cause the journey to

Good Morning and Welcome Year 11 students to the Poetry Seminar. My name is Will and I am here to present to you an Australian poem which represents belonging. The poem that I have chosen to analyse is Drifters by Bruce Dawe. Today I will be discussing how the poem relates to belonging, two important figurative devices within the poem and an extrapolation of the taught poem migrant hostel which also explores the idea of belonging.

There are many people who travel a distance in life to find the path they should take or to remember the path they once took. In the poem “The Path Not Taken,” by Robert Frost and the short story "I Used to Live Here Once" by Jean Rhys there are many similarities and differences. The authors’ use of describing a path helps them personify life’s journeys and self-reflection.