Natalie Lagerroth: An Analysis Of Jack Davis's Poetry

Imagine hordes of hostile and alien men suddenly invade your home. They rip you from your homes, hunt you like wild animals, slaughter and rape your loved ones, and force you to forget everything you’ve ever known. How would you feel? For the Indigenous Australians, this was not a hypothetical scenario, but a disturbing reality.

Good morning/afternoon. My name is Natalie Lagerroth. I am honoured to be have been invited to speak to you today and to share my feelings about a topic that is very close to my heart.

Indigenous Australians have been subjected to many forms of disadvantage since the European invasion in 1788, including racial discrimination, oppression, and inequality. The attempted ethnocide perpetrated against the Aboriginals has

In particular, they are using poetry as a vehicle to express their emotions and communicate their desire for a multicultural, pluralistic Australia. Poetry is “…designed to open our eyes, open our doors and welcome us into a bigger world, one of possibilities we may never have dared to dream of.”

Jack Davis was one such Indigenous Australian that used poetry to tell of his plight. Born in 1917 as one of the Noongar peoples of Western Australia, Davis grew up in a time where Aboriginals were subjected to abhorrent treatment. Motivated by his indignation at the actions of white people, Davis began to write poetry as a means of self-expression. He went on to become one of the most talented and prolific poets Australia has seen. A particularly prominent poem of his is Aboriginal Australia.

The heart wrenching poem decries the heinous crimes that the white committed against the Aboriginals. It describes the Indigenous children that were wrongly stolen from their families, the appalling rapes that occurred, and the decimation of their population. The mood of the poem is predominantly melancholy, as evidenced by the line “…you swamped by way of gladness, took my children from my side”. As the poem progresses, the tone perceptibly shifts to angry and accusatory. “You murdered me with rope, with gun, the massacre of my enclave” is representative of this. The mood

This connection provides him with a deep personal understanding of cultural values and the ability to relate to the indigenous. Corso composed My Face is Black on Australia Day, when the Aboriginal plight was brought to the forefront of his mind. He disclosed, “I wrote this poem from the perspective of trying to imagine exchanging places with an Aboriginal, and thinking of how I would feel about the connection to the land, the intrusion by others, and the erosion of a way of life and identity.” The raw and overwhelming poem is about the tragedies that occurred and the repercussions it had for