Odgeroo Noonuccal's Time Is Running Out

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Poetry is a form of art which we are all somewhat familiar with, but it is also a tool, a tool which is used to celebrate the beauty of the world, and to raise awareness about things tainting this beauty. Poets make it their job to portray their chosen concept in such a way that it can be appreciated as an artform, a lot of inspiration around this comes from personal experience, or experiences of those who are being given voice. Which is why the statement ‘the most repressive times produce the most extraordinary art’ is supported by countless works, drawing from exposure to such ‘repressive times’ and calling for action within communities to make a change. Two poets who aid this claim are: Indigenous-Australian poet Odgeroo Noonuccal, and African-American …show more content…

Noonuccal describes the situation in this poem through a negative light paired with great command of literature to inform the audience of the crimes against the land being committed by the white man. As well as conveying an example of the deep connection the First Australians have with the Earth. In the lines ‘The miner rapes/the heart of earth/with his violent spade./Stealing, bottling her black blood’ aggressive imagery is used to reflect the intensity of the behaviours exhibited by the white man and highlights the offence he bears through doing this. Personification is also used in describing the land, which is a continued theme throughout the poem, reflecting the treatment of the Earth and understanding of the Earth in indigenous culture as similar to that of a real person within their community, thus underlining how harming the Earth is equivalent to harming one of them, or at least an incredibly large part of their identity. These opening lines set the tone for the poem as serious, as Noonuccal begins to explore the vast impact that colonisation has had on her people. She also describes the miner in the lines ‘For the sake of the filthy dollar,/He dirties the nest he builds./Well he knows that violence/Of his destructive kind’ through the use of zoomorphism in insinuating that he is like an animal making its nest. The nest being a metaphor for the environment and society that he is trying to establish, reflects how the indigenous people view it as inhumane. This is again supported by using the word ‘kind’ as an attribute, implying that the white man is seen as a different species. By saying ‘filthy dollar’, Noonuccal also conveys her negative views on the conventions of white people. This poem was written to

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