Judith Wrights Poetry

In what way is Judith Wright’s poetry a worthwhile study for Australian students?

Judith Wright is a respected Australian poet is also known as a conservationist and protester. Her poetry has captured the most amazing imagery of Australian Culture. For Australian students to understand their own culture and history it is necessary to study the best poetry and Judith Wright’s poetry is definitely some of the best.

Her achievement in translating the Australian experience into poetry led in her best work to a rich inheritance of lyricism and directness. Through stories told by older workers on the property she learnt of the pioneers' part in both the destruction of the land and the dispossession and murder of the aboriginal people. The sense of fear she felt at invasion enabled her to understand, at some level, how the Aborigines would have felt.

Judith Wright wrote about many things in her poems, which are necessary for Australian students to be taught which apply to learning about Australia. Australian culture is something Judith wrote about very strongly and this shows through her poem Bora Ring. Bora Ring is about the Aborigine culture and how it has been lost by the invasion of Europeans.

‘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.'

This is an incredible paragraph extracted from Bora Ring. This poem depicts perfectly of the European invasion of Australia. It shows how the traditions and stories are gone, how the hunting and rituals are gone and ‘lost in an alien tale’, the Europeans being the aliens. This poem also describes that it seemed as if the tradition of Aborigines was ‘breathed sleeping and forgot’. These are powerful words Judith Wright used to show how they Aborigines were quickly invaded and ‘forgotten’. This poem is an excellent example of why Australian students should study her poetry.

Australian relationships are depicted perfectly by Judith in these poems, ‘Woman to Child’, ‘Woman to Man’, ‘Brother and sisters and then ‘Remembering an aunt’. All of these poems show Australian relationships through Judith Wright’s views. Brother and sisters is basically showing of how people get old. ‘..and now their orchards never would be planted’, ‘..John each night at ten wound the gilt clock that leaked the year away’. In the last paragraph this poem suddenly hits the reader because you are brought into the poem.