Poetry

[Jakeybaby]

Hi,

 I would post this in the SACE forum, but unfortunately no one will answer there :/

In English Studies at the moment, we are currently working through the work of the following 3 poets:
Gwen Harwood
Judith Wright
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Of which, a essay will need to be written comparing the aspects of the work of the 3 poets above.
The details have not been released completely by my teacher, this is all the infromation I have at the moment.
Does anyone have any ideas regarding the possibilities that I could base my essay paragraphs on? Sorry for the lack of information, all I know is that the essay is quite general in terms of the structure. However, my teacher mentioned early last week that she has only ever seen 2 students successfully complete an essay on the techniques of these poets and that this is where the higher grade students are seen.

[literally lauren]

That's okay - I'll swing by the SACE boards when you have English-related concerns!
(I'm a VCE-er, but I kind of know what the SACE English subjects involve, and there's a lot of overlap with the Victorian system anyway. That said, your teacher's advice should take priority over mine, for obvious reasons :3)

My recommendation is that you structure paragraphs by thematic focuses (e.g. both Gwen Harwood and Judith Wright examine the role of women in society in a lot of their poetry) and then within that para, examine the kinds of structural features they employ in order to convey meaning. For instance, Harwood might use enjambment and irregular stress patterns to create a sense of unnatural-ness when writing about women being treated as lesser beings, whereas Wright might use the symbol of a prison cell to characterise her experiences and feeling as though her voice was being ignored (- not referring to specific poems here, these are just really vague outlines.) Then in your next paragraph, contrast Wright with Noonuccal and find a key concern in both of their texts which you can delve into, comparing and contrasting techniques as you do so.

If your teacher has said that students often don't 'successfully' analyse poetry, it might be worth going to her and asking for some tips. It's a difficult part of the course (and no student actually enjoys over-thinking lines of verse except oddballs like me) so getting a teacher's perspective on what makes a 'good/successful' poetic analysis would be invaluable.

Otherwise, let me know which poems you're studying and I'll try and offer some more specific advice

[Jakeybaby]

I've now got the essay question:

“No man is an island.”  How has your study of poetry this year shown that human beings share common experiences and feelings?

I was thinking basing my essay around:

• The recognition of inequality in the world, both racial and gender-wise
• The feeling of lamentation

[literally lauren]

I've now got the essay question:

“No man is an island.”  How has your study of poetry this year shown that human beings share common experiences and feelings?

I was thinking basing my essay around:

• The recognition of inequality in the world, both racial and gender-wise
• The feeling of lamentation

My (admittedly-outsider-and-therefore-of-limited-usefulness) recommendation is that you go for two poets per paragraph, maybe with occasional minor reference to a third.
e.g.
P1: Harwood and Wright
P2: Wright and Noonuccal
P3: Noonuccal and Harwood

...and find thematic links between each of them underneath this umbrella of human dependency and 'shared experience.' Based on my understanding of the SACE syllabus, that should satisfy the textual connection part of the criteria whilst still giving your essay a clear enough structure for both you and your assessor (though obvs if your teacher says differently, then their input > mine).

So the next question is how you can forge these thematic links. For starters, what do each of these three texts have to say about this prompt? Map it all out - either in your head or on paper - and work out where the overlap is. Great way to do this is to think about the following for 'levels/variants' of text comparison:

RED: SIMILARITIES IN LANGUAGE i.e. how have two authors used same literary devices, words, or other structural features? e.g. Wright employs visceral imagery when describing the horrors of the Vietnam War, and Gwen Harwood conveys a similar sense of bloodshed and inhumanity through the imagery in her poems, such as...
YELLOW: SIMILARITIES IN MESSAGE i.e. how have two authors created the same general idea or thematic concern through their work? e.g. Wright's poetry is concerned with the monotony of urban life; likewise, Harwood also explores how a detachment from the natural world can have deleterious consequences.
GREEN: DIFFERENCES IN LANGUAGE i.e. how have two authors used different literary devices, words, or other structural features? e.g. Where Wright employs stark, pithy language to draw attention to how out of place the speaker is in her surroundings, Harwood instead uses more flowing structures to mirror her speaker's meandering journey through unfamiliar landscapes.
BLUE: DIFFERENCES IN MESSAGE i.e. how have two authors created different ideas or impressions about thematic concerns through their work? e.g. Though Wright's poems reinforce the notion that people are highly dependent on one another in terms of both happiness and survival, Harwood challenges this notion by exploring the vicissitudes of independence and liberation.

(note: none of those language features or messages are remotely accurate for these poets, but you get the idea.)

You can also stack these things by arguing that, say, two authors use similar language devices to create different meanings, or different language features that create the same meaning.

But broadly speaking, you want to be exploring all four colours/levels/variants to some extent. I'd argue the differences are usually more interesting to comment on, but acknowledging similarities is very important too, and is often a great way to bulk up introductions or begin paragraphs.

Hope that helps - please let me know if any of that clashes with what you've been taught or if there's anything you're unsure about!

[Jakeybaby]

Would it be possible for you to read over 'possibly my worst essay ever':

Spoiler

Poets Judith Wright, Gwen Harwood and Oodgeroo Noonuccal all explore similar ideas throughout their poems, focussed heavily on the aspect of equality and the feeling of lamentation throughout many of their texts. By addressing key issues which were relevant to the time of publication, all authors were able to connect with their audiences to explore the experiences and feelings which were common throughout all human beings.

Facing injustices throughout one’s life is a common experience which is felt throughout human beings. Through Dichterliebe, The Dispossed  and Niggers Leap, New England by Harwood, Noonuccal and Wright respectively, all poets examine the inequalities present throughout the world. The Dispossed and Niggers Leap, New England both scrutinize the treatment of Aborigines in Australia whereas Harwood aims to target her poem towards the role of women in relationships and the overbearing power of which men think that they personally possess. However, all highlight the fact that differences in opinion can lead to certain inequalities being present throughout a human’s life. Throughout Niggers Leap, New England the ethicality of the 1788 migration onto Australian soil, highlighting that the Aboriginal people of the time were the custodians of the land. The use of obscene images such as “screaming falling in flesh from the lipped cliff” shows that Wright is criticising the actions of the English upon their arrival. The fundamental tone of the text reflects this perspective, for the text recognises the hardship of the Aboriginal people throughout the 228 years of settlement on this land. This approach allows the audiences to sympathise with these Aborigines, especially through the use of rhetorical questions “… and the black dust our crops ate was their dust?” The audience truly now begins to recognise that this experience was felt by all aboriginals throughout Australia, not just the group that were present in 1788, but the hatred and discriminative actions towards the Aboriginal people stemmed throughout generations. Wright makes the presence of Aboriginal people explicit, “think black children dancing like the shadows of saplings in the wind.” This makes her vision overt, the Aboriginal people can never be removed from the land, as their existence and spirituality still remains present in the Earth. The fact that this racial inequality was present is reinforced through Oodgeroo’s poem, The Dispossessed, which clearly shows the effect of colonialization of Aboriginal Australia, and the hardship which was and is faced by the Aboriginal community, as she said “Till white Colonials stole your peace / with rape and murder raid”. The structure of Oodgeroo’s text shows the frustration and other emotions which she was facing while creating this poem. The open flow allows the reader to follow the lifestyle in Australia prior and  subsequent to the colonisation, used to emphasise the injustice which the Aboriginals faced, and making it obvious that the actions of the present may be in good spirit, but no action will be able to change what has occurred in the past. Dichterliebe is yet another poem that although does not focus on a racial aspect, still challenges the inequality present in another situation in a human’s life, the relationship between male and female partners. Harwood withstands by her feminist viewpoint throughout this poem, as it recognises the fact that women around the world are taken advantage of by men due to their standing in society. She demonstrates the fact that the male partner in her life has sucked “my sap and vigour down the crude mouth of his private hell”, she’s had her energy by forcefully extracting it from her. Harwood also makes note of the differences in actions and roles in the relationship, “I’ll wash the floors. He’ll wash the stars” noting that the male figure has the easy role and expects his female partner to do all the work for him. Through these poems, the poets successfully explored the idea of inequality and injustice being present throughout numerous different lives of human beings throughout this world.

The feeling of lamentation and solemness is one that is shown as being a common feeling that is felt by all human beings. Oodgeroo focuses heavily on the feeling of lamentation throughout her poems regarding the colonialisation of Australia, including in Last of his Tribe, where she reminisces over her Uncle, Willie Mackenzie. Oodgeroo explains that “The new must oust told”, explaining that white Australia had taken over the land forcefully from the Aboriginal elders. She shows the solemnness through her messages conveying the fact that Willie Mackenzie has now been reduced to nothing due to white Australia. The fact that an entire tribe’s memories and traditions now long with him only, show that once Willie passes, the tribes heritage does too. “Displaced person in your own country” is a segment which carries significant meaning, further demonstrating that Australia belongs to the Aborigines, Oodgeroo recognises this throughout her writing, and reflected quite heavily on this aspect throughout Last of his Tribe. However, not only is the feeling of lamentation discussed by Oodgeroo, Harwood also discusses this in slight detail throughout Suburban Sonnet, where the life of a mother is describe, hampered by her children . This poem describes the fact that the woman is constantly being pulled away from her passion, music by suburban life, and the woman recognises her life as nothing more than “stale bread”. The use of the draining of the soapy water symbolises her life, which has gone “down the drain”, as now she is not able to make anything good from it. This feeling of sorrow and sadness is also exhibited through Wright’s The Old Prison, who highlights the nature of an inmates life inside the Port Arthur prison. The text describes prison as a nest, but not a nest consisting of warmth or safety, but more of a nest that is nest that is in imminent danger, forever teetering on the edge of a cliff. The inmates are deprived of basic human needs such as love, with the weather presenting itself in an irate state, “the wind like an angry bee”. The use of the prisoner’s life can allow the audience to feel sympathetic towards the inmate, posing the question, is it humane for this to occur? The prisoner in this institution is shown to be regretful and lonely, while showing a feeling of lamentation. Oodgeroo, Wright and Harwood all recognise that the feeling of solemness is clearly evident throughout many lives, and occurs in completely different scenarios, understanding that this feeling is common throughout humans.

The poets Harwood, Wright and Oodgeroo all recognise that the feeling of lamentation occurs throughout all human beings, as so does the inequality present between different races and genders. Each poet presents the matter in from different perspectives, influencing the audience to recognise that the issue at hand occurs in more than the scenario listed in each poem.

This is what happens when you rush an essay and run out of poems to fit into a paragraph.

Thanks, Jake

[literally lauren]

'possibly my worst essay ever':

Just before I get to your piece, what makes you say this, exactly? I know it can be excruciating to read things you've written and think it's not up to your usual standards, but I can seriously recommend having a nice long think about how and why a piece of writing doesn't measure up. Was it that the analysis you were doing didn't feel relevant? Did you feel like you were repeating yourself too much? Were you unable to word your thoughts in a way that did them justice?

All of those problems have vastly different solutions, so being reeeeeally specific about where you feel you're going wrong can make your English study a lot more efficient and effective

k, enough waffle, onto the essay...

Poets Judith Wright, Gwen Harwood and Oodgeroo Noonuccal all explore similar ideas throughout their poems, focussed heavily on the aspect of equality and the feeling of lamentation throughout many of their texts. By addressing key issues which were relevant to the time of publication, all authors were able to connect with their audiences to explore the experiences and feelings which were common throughout all human beings this is a very generic sentence, and it could probably be applied to basically any essay ever; I know the prompt you've got is quite vague, but it'd be good if you gave yourself more direction here since an assessor might see this as a bit too general.

Facing injustices throughout one’s life is a common experience which is felt throughout human beings again, try and be a bit more specific. How does facing injustices affect people, broadly speaking? <--the answer to that question might make a better addition to this Topic Sentence.. Through Dichterliebe, The Dispossed  and Niggers Leap, New England is your teacher a fan of listing poem titles like this? Because I'd say it's better to just cut this out entirely by Harwood, Noonuccal and Wright respectively, all poets examine the inequalities present throughout the world this is sort of already implied in your T.S. so no sense repeating it. The Dispossed and Niggers Leap, New England both are you talking about two or three poems here? scrutinize the treatment of Aborigines in Australia whereas Harwood aims to target her poem towards the role of women in relationships and the overbearing power of which men think that they personally possess. It'd probably be easier to explore one poem, then find a point of transition before talking aobut the next one ***see end comments! However, all highlight the fact that differences in opinion can lead to certain inequalities being present throughout a human’s life. || Everything up to this point could've been summarised in a single sentence or two to kick this paragraph off - prioritise efficiency in your expression where possible. Throughout Niggers Leap, New England the ethicality of the 1788 migration onto Australian soil, highlighting Are there words missing here? 'Throughout these poems... highlighting the custodians of the land?' This sentence structure is a bit confusing; you'd need the author's/authors' name(s) in there somewhere if you wanted to talk about what the poems were highlighting that the Aboriginal people of the time were the custodians of the land. The use of obscene word choice? images such as “screaming falling in flesh from the lipped cliff” shows that Wright is criticising the actions of the English upon their arrival what is it about this evidence/quote that tells you this? You might be right, but unless you can 'show your workings' and explain why this language demonstrates certain ideas, your reader might have a tough time following you (or rather, the easily impressed assessors will be like 'oh cool, I see what you meant,' whereas the harsher assessors would pull you up like 'you haven't given me enough information'). The fundamental tone of the text which is? reflects this perspective, for the text also, probably better to either refer to 'a poems,' 'their poems,' or 'their collection' (or 'their oeuvre' if you want to be all French and fancy ) recognises the hardship of the Aboriginal people how do you know? throughout the 228 years of settlement on this land. This approach allows the audiences to sympathise with these Aborigines, especially through the use of rhetorical questions “… and the black dust our crops ate was their dust?” <-- are you sure this is a rhetorical question? Based on what you've quoted here, it doesn't sound like it. The audience truly now begins to can therefore recognise that this experience was felt by all aboriginals throughout Australia, not just the group that were present in 1788, but the hatred and discriminative actions towards the Aboriginal people stemmed throughout generations again, HOW DO YOU KNOW? That's the most important question to answer in your body paragraphs. Wright makes the presence of Aboriginal people explicit, “think black children dancing like the shadows of saplings in the wind.” <--try to integrate this quote This makes her vision overt, the Aboriginal people can never be removed from the land, as their existence and spirituality still remains present in the Earth this is a great idea, but I don't feel like you've gotten there by examining textual details. The fact that this racial inequality was present is reinforced through Oodgeroo’s poem, The Dispossessed, which clearly shows the effect of colonialization of Aboriginal Australia, and the hardship which was and is faced by the Aboriginal community, as she said rather than thinking about what an author might be 'saying' - phrase it so you're discussing what a poem suggests/implies/depicts etc. “Till white Colonials stole your peace / with rape and murder raid”. The structure of Oodgeroo’s text shows the frustration and other emotions which she was facing while creating this poem. The open flow allows the reader to follow the lifestyle in Australia prior and  subsequent to the colonisation, used to emphasise the injustice which the Aboriginals faced, and making it obvious that the actions of the present may be in good spirit, but no action will be able to change what has occurred in the past this could all probably be simplified down to a single sentence. Dichterliebe is yet another poem that although does not focus on a racial aspect, still challenges the inequality present in another situation in a human’s life, the relationship between male and female partners linking is good here, but the sentence structure is a little messy. Harwood withstands by her feminist viewpoint throughout this poem, as it she recognises the fact that women around the world are taken advantage of by men due to their standing in society. She demonstrates the fact that the male partner in her life has sucked her “my sap and vigour down the crude mouth of his private hell”, she’s had her energy by forcefully extracting it from her exp.. Harwood also makes note of the differences in actions and roles in the relationship, “I’ll wash the floors. He’ll wash the stars” <--make this quote fit your sentences; don't just chuck it in noting that the male figure has the easy role and expects his female partner to do all the work for him. Through these poems, the poets successfully explored the idea of inequality and injustice being present throughout numerous different lives of human beings throughout this world concluding sentence is also a bit vague; is there anything more precise you can say about what the poets are saying about these ideas?.

The feeling of lamentation and solemness is one that is shown as being a common feeling that is felt by all human beings rather than referencing 'all human beings' like this, be more descriptive. Oodgeroo focuses heavily on the feeling of lamentation throughout her poems regarding the colonialisation of Australia, including in Last of his Tribe, where she reminisces over her Uncle, Willie Mackenzie. Oodgeroo explains that “The new must oust told”, explaining that white Australia had taken over the land forcefully from the Aboriginal elders again, how does this language lead to this notion? She shows the solemnness through her messages conveying the fact that Willie Mackenzie has now been reduced to nothing due to white Australia. The fact that an entire tribe’s memories and traditions now long ?? with him only, show that once Willie passes, the tribes heritage does too <--this is much better; more of this kind of explanation!!. “Displaced person in your own country” is a segment which carries significant meaning, further demonstrating that Australia belongs to the Aborigines how so?, Oodgeroo recognises this throughout her writing, and reflected quite heavily on this aspect throughout Last of his Tribe. However, not only is the feeling of lamentation discussed by Oodgeroo, <--when you're going from point to point, prioritise contrast! (I'll explain this more in the comments below)--> Harwood also discusses this in slight detail throughout Suburban Sonnet, where the life of a mother is described as being hampered by her children . This poem describes the fact that the woman is constantly being pulled away from her passion, music by suburban life, and the woman recognises her life as nothing more than “stale bread”. The use of the draining of the soapy water symbolises her life, which has gone “down the drain” YESSSSS! MOAR OF THIS!, as now she is not able to make anything good from it. This feeling of sorrow and sadness is also exhibited through Wright’s The Old Prison, who which highlights the nature of an inmate's life inside the Port Arthur prison. The text describes prison as a nest quote?, but not a nest consisting of warmth or safety, but more of a nest that is nest that is in imminent danger, forever teetering on the edge of a cliff how do you know?. The inmates are deprived of basic human needs such as love, with the weather presenting itself in an irate state, “the wind like an angry bee”. okay, how are these things related?? The prison deprives them of love and the weather is angry? I can kind of see what you're hinting at, but if I'm your assessor, I can't give you marks for things that I'm projecting onto your essay - you need to spell it out for me! The use of the prisoner’s life try to contextualise your evidence here can allow the audience to feel sympathetic towards the inmate, posing the question, is it humane for this to occur? The prisoner in this institution is shown to be regretful and lonely, while showing a feeling of lamentation how so? Textual evidence is desperately needed here! Your essay would be so much stronger with it! Oodgeroo, Wright and Harwood all recognise that the feeling of solemness is clearly evident throughout many lives, and occurs in completely different scenarios, understanding that this feeling is common throughout humans and why is it common? I know this might seem like it's outside of the scope of the task, but in order to make satisfactory/impressive paragraph conclusions, you want to be zooming out a bit here and thinking about these authors' overall messages. But I do like that you've started doing that already, as it leads nicely into your conclusion.

The poets Harwood, Wright and Oodgeroo all recognise that the feeling of lamentation occurs throughout all human beings, as so does the inequality present between different races and genders. Each poet presents the matter in from different perspectives this isn't really something you've directly explored, influencing the audience to recognise that the issue at hand occurs in more than the scenario listed in each poem as in, the themes are more prevalent than just the subject matter that's been outlined here? Not sure where you're going with this.

Okay, this is an awesome start, and you've effectively teased out the necessary & relevant bits of each of the texts.

However, with a lot of your points, you're kind of starting and ending in the right places, but it's the middle bits that are missing!
The most important thing in most analyses is that you're able to explain HOW and WHY certain evidence establishes certain ideas.

For example, if I said "the fact that I don't like lipton chamomile tea shows how much I hate koalas" - you'd rightfully be utterly confused. Whereas, if I were to explain that "I don't like lipton chamomile tea because the logo of that brand has a koala on it, and I'm so averse to koalas having been bitten by one when I was four that I now associate the tea with that horrific childhood memory. So the fact that I still can't drink lipton chamomile tea reveals how ingrained my antipathy towards koalas is" - now things become much clearer.

*Note: lipton chamomile tea don't have a koala logo, nor was I bitten by a koala as a child, but you get the idea.

Even when there is a more logical link between ideas (e.g. 'Character X loves ANZAC biscuits, and is therefore very patriotic,') it's generally advantageous to flesh out the connections. Imagine you're explaining this to a fairly smart child who can comprehend your logic if you spell it out to them, but won't make assumptions on their own.

You should also try and find some message-based connections and contrasts. At the moment, most of your transitions come down to 'X is a thing in Wright's poems, and it's also a thing in Harwood's poems...'

Instead, try to set the authors up in comparison or contrast to one another (e.g. 'Where Wright explores the reasons for the cultural differences between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, Harwood instead examines the consequences of this disparity...') I know I said you could link similar messages too, but I think the differences would be better for you in this context as they require you to be more specific about what each author is dealing with.

Also...
***regarding transitions and the order of your analysis:
I think you'd probably find it easier to, rather than talk about multiple poems at once constantly, zoom in on one, then zoom out and zoom in on another. It's excellent that you're able to integrate them so closely, but that can come at the expense of the quality of your analysis.

In other words, let's say Wright = red, Harwood = yellow, Noonuccal = blue...
...you don't want your sentences to contain red+yellow+blue every time, or even red+yellow, yellow+blue, blue+red.

...instead, aim to have a paragraph that goes like:
- orange.   orange+red.   red.   red.   red+orange.  orange+yellow.   yellow.   yellow.   yellow+orange.   orange.

So these orange sentences (or parts of sentences) are acting as a bridge between ideas, smoothly integrating the ideas of one text with the ideas of another. This ensures you're not just jumping from one to the other too suddenly or too constantly. Does that make sense?

As always, let me know if you have any questions


edit: also, if you happen to have any marking rubrics or list of criteria that you've gotten from your teacher/school, feel free to post it here and I might be able to give more specific advice. At the moment I'm just basing this off what I know from the SACE site and general essay/sentence structure things, but I'm happy to delve into it further if you've got more specific instructions to work with

[Jakeybaby]

Wow, thankyou for that!

I am now stuck with the horrid task of removing 222 words from the essay, here is where it is at, at the moment:

Spoiler

The fact that humans all face similar situations such as inequalities and emotions including the feeling of lamentation is explored quite heavily throughout Wright, Harwood and Noonuccal’s poetry. All three female poets use literary techniques to all explore these throughout their collection, which enables the audience to recognise these common scenarios and feelings.

Facing injustices throughout one’s life is a common experience which affects people in a way which can damage their esteem, self-worth and perspective of their individual life. The Dispossed and Niggers Leap, New England from Noonuccal and Wright both scrutinize the treatment of Aborigines in Australia and the ethicality of the 1788 migration onto Australian soil, highlighting that the Aboriginal people of the time were the custodians of the land. The use of explicit images such as “screaming falling in flesh from the lipped cliff” shows the brutality which was exerted by the British settlers, the imagery creates a disgust that the readers now feel towards the settlers, this demonstrates Wright’s criticism towards the actions of the English upon their arrival. The fundamental tone of the two texts, condescending but yet sympathetic reflects this perspective, for both Noonuccal and Wright’s oeuvre recognises the hardship of the Aboriginal people through the use of imagery to create emotional flow throughout people. This approach allows the audiences to sympathise with these Aborigines, especially through the use of rhetorical questions “… Did we not know their blood channelled our rivers // and the black dust our crops ate was their dust?” The audience can therefore recognise that this experience was felt by all aboriginals throughout Australia, not just the group that were present in 1788, but the hatred and discriminative actions towards the Aboriginal people stemmed throughout generations. This is shown through Noonuccal’s texts regarding the present, including We are Going which states “and we are going” highlights the fact that still to this day, the Aboriginal people are still undermined as human beings, and insinuates the eventually, the Aboriginal race will disappear. Wright makes the presence of Aboriginal people explicit, “think black children dancing like the shadows of saplings in the wind.” This makes her vision overt, the Aboriginal people can never be removed from the land, as their existence and spirituality still remains present in the Earth. The fact that this racial inequality was present is reinforced through Oodgeroo’s poem, The Dispossessed, which clearly shows the effect of colonialization of Aboriginal Australia, and the hardship which was and is faced by the Aboriginal community, “Till white Colonials stole your peace / with rape and murder raid”. The structure of Oodgeroo’s text shows the frustration which she was feeling while creating this poem, the flow is used to emphasise the injustice which the Aboriginals faced, and making it obvious that the actions of the present may be in good spirit, but no action will be able to change what has occurred in the past. Dichterliebe by Harwood is yet another poem that although does not focus on a racial aspect, still challenges the inequality present throughout relationships between male and female partners. Harwood stands by her feminist viewpoint throughout this poem, as she recognises the fact that women around the world are taken advantage of by men due to their standing in society. She demonstrates the fact that the male partner in her life has sucked her “my sap and vigour down the crude mouth of his private hell”, she’s had her energy by forcefully extracting it from her. Her male partner is depriving her of the enjoyable things throughout life, rather forcing her to be his slave. Harwood also makes note of the differences in actions and roles in the relationship, shown through “I’ll wash the floors. He’ll wash the stars” showing that the male figure has the easy role and expects his female partner to do all the work for him. Through these poems, the poets explored the idea of inequality and injustice being present and the affect that it has on the human psyche throughout different lives of human beings throughout this world.

The feeling of lamentation and solemness is one that is shown as being a common emotion which is provoke by different situations throughout the world.Oodgeroo focuses heavily on the feeling of lamentation throughout her poems regarding the colonialisation of Australia, including in Last of his Tribe, where she reminisces over her Uncle, Willie Mackenzie. She shows the solemnness through her messages conveying the fact that Willie Mackenzie has now been reduced to nothing due to white Australia. The fact that an entire tribe’s memories and traditions now remain with him only, show that once Willie passes, the tribes heritage does too.  “Displaced person in your own country” is a segment which carries significant meaning, further demonstrating that Australia belongs to the Aborigines due to Australia being referenced as their own, and they have been removed it. Oodgeroo recognises this throughout her writing, and reflected quite heavily on this aspect throughout Last of his Tribe. However, not only is the feeling of lamentation discussed by Oodgeroo, Harwood also discusses this in slight detail throughout Suburban Sonnet, where the life of a mother is described as being hampered by her children . This poem describes the fact that the woman is constantly being pulled away from her passion, music by suburban life, and the woman recognises her life as nothing more than “stale bread”. The use of the draining of the soapy water symbolises her life, which has gone “down the drain”, as now she is not able to make anything good from it. This feeling of sorrow and sadness is also exhibited through Wright’s The Old Prison, which highlights the nature of an inmate's life inside the Port Arthur prison. The text insinuates that prison as a nest, but not a nest consisting of warmth or safety, but more of a nest that is nest that is in imminent danger, forever teetering on the edge of a cliff, shown through the imagery of the horrid weather. The inmates are deprived of basic human needs such as love, with the weather presenting itself in an irate state, “the wind like an angry bee”. This positioning of these two separate ideas contribute immensely to the effect which the prison has on the convict’s mental health. The use of the prisoner’s life can allow the audience to feel sympathetic towards the inmate, posing the question, is it humane for this to occur? The prisoner in this institution is shown to be regretful and lonely, while showing a feeling of lamentation demonstrated through the fact that “each in his cell alone // cried as the wind now cries”. Oodgeroo, Wright and Harwood all recognise that the feeling of solemness is clearly evident throughout many lives, and occurs in completely different scenarios, understanding that this feeling is common throughout humans. This feeling of lamentation is common throughout humans due to the fact that all humans are sometimes placed into positions which will test their mental strength and sometimes, these situations can become overbearing.

The poets Harwood, Wright and Oodgeroo all recognise that the feeling of lamentation occurs throughout all human beings, as does the inequality present between different races and genders. Each poet implements literary techniques including imagery to influence the audience in recognising that these issues are common throughout the world.

Do you like the improvements that I have made? Would you recommend anything else?

By the way, here is an attachment of the performance standards which I will be marked according to.