Nigger's Leap New England Poem Analysis

Kate Collins

Kirril Shields

ENGL1100

05 September 2014

Topic One – “Australia” and “Nigger’s Leap, New England” For decades, Australian poetry has portrayed several distinguishing views of Australia and the Australian identity. In this same light, Australian poets have, across time, used varying techniques and poetic devices to foreground similar subjects, detailing important issues surrounding topics of settler violence and prior Aboriginal occupation of the land, often with very diverse outcomes. Mary Gilmore’s Australia and Judith Wright’s Nigger’s Leap, New England both deal with similar issues of Western colonisation and cultural neglect of the Indigenous inhabitants of Australia, however, through the use of imagery and rhythm Gilmore and Wright have created two particularly distinctive views. By comparing and contrasting these two historically renowned works, it can be seen how the elements of imagery and rhythm can work together to produce different meanings and viewpoints despite focusing on similar historical content.

Imagery plays an important role in creating a foundation of any poetic work, functioning

Often telling a story of exciting adventure and action, and commonly humorous in tone, the bush ballad takes place against a backdrop of the wild and rugged, Australian countryside. Two iconic bush ballads, The Man from Snowy River by Banjo Paterson and Adam Lindsay Gordon’s The Sick Stockrider establish an important link between the central Stockrider figure and the bush, a characteristic bond that has become an essential part of the Australian Identity. Both Paterson and Gordon employ poetic devices, specifically imagery, rhythm and structure to support the heroic, legendary qualities that have cemented their place in Australian