Poetry of Judith Wright

The material in this booklet suggests some ways that views and values expressed in Judith Wright’s poetry might be discussed.

Janet McCurry

1

THE LIT-CRIT PROCESS WITH CLOSE ANALYSIS AT ITS HEART

2

Key ideas, Key concerns

Overall interpretation,views and values

Close analysis

Judith Wright poetry: some vocabulary and concepts

Modeling

1. “Judith Wright’s poetry speaks of diffident, fugitive ideas that do not often have a voice. “ Discuss. Judith Wright’s poetry speaks of diffident, fugitive ideas that do not often have a voice. This is true for poems like South Of My Days, where the beauty and fragility of the Australian landscape is captured in the first paragraph….but which has been overwhelmed by the European plants which aggressively…

Old Dan’s stories too, are aggressive and self-promoting. They drown out other stories that might be discovered if one could listen to the ….or articulate the almost mystical connection between the human inhabitants of a place and the terrain… South of My Days (1945?) prefigures any notions of public reconciliation with the indigenous people of Australia, but it is clearly expressing an impatience with the self-promoting, self-satisfied, masculinist Eurocentric values and identity that dominate stories of our heritage. The poem suggests that we should look more inwardly, with more delicacy and tentativeness for an understanding of the purpose of human existence and our relationship with the rest of humanity and the physical world. Continue a discussion of the poem in the terms outlined above.

FeelingTentativenessEmotionIntuitionOrganismProvisional nessImpressionApproximationUncertainty/ possibilityValues/ preferencesSubjectivityHumanity/community/cultureRandomnessSpontaneity/ chance/ impulsivity /serendipityContinuity/ interdependenceWholeheartednessWarmth/passionFertility/fecundity/ messReproductionInclusion/ acceptanceSensitivity/ vulnerabilitySpirituality/ mystery

ThinkingDefinitivenessReasonDeductionMechanismAlgorithmMeasurement/ calibrationPrecisionCertainty/ circumscriptionStandards/ absolutesObjectivityScience/technology/mathematicsControl/ reliablility/ specificationPredictabilitySeparateness/ individualityCalculationColdness/ reservationSterility/ scarcity/ orderReplicationExclusion/intoleranceImperviousness/stoicismEmpiricism/ evidence

3

The Company of Lovers, written after the Second World War, has this same interest in that which is subjugated by aggressive, destructive forces. The opening lines have a delicacy and gentleness, an expression of the desolation that is felt after the momentary connection is made, “We meet and part now…”

(Now, I’m not going to try to do it, but I think that you could make an argument about all of the poems in the set using this framework. Poems like The Dark Ones fit this frame very well. A poem like Double Image is an exploration of those destructive subjugating impulses that are part of the human condition. Eve, sitting with her daughters, is trying to suggest that Adam can’t help it and that we women need to assert other ways of understanding human existence, or the meaning of life …otherwise we are headed for annihilation.)

Woman to Man and Woman to Child make a powerful claim for this female understanding. Age to Youth ? Smalltown Dance? Some Words?- in what ways would all its different sections fit into this framework? Fire Sermon? Tight Ropes?

Woman (in Woman to Man) is engrossed by the fundamental, generative process that involves her intimately but which is beyond her understanding. Her experience connects her directly to the spring of life (well-spring?) and the poem is a celebration of the wonder of that. Her passion and focus is generous and selfless. She, in the loving relationship that she has with Man, is the medium for this infinite joyous creativity, that is, at the same time, terrifying in its profundity. In Eve to her daughters, Adam's passion- his genius- is self-absorbed and futile- a process that is ultimately meaningless and sterile, rapacious but self-defeating, disconnected from the well-spring.

Little and infinitely, intensely creative and profound: big, and collapsing into its own emptiness.

Notes on Wright’s Double Image

“Image” suggests representation rather than reality, as in a photograph or sketch, or a reflection- something mirrored?

This poem is about the speaker’s recognition of the darkest aspects of her human nature, feelings and impulses that she has in common with her ancestors and presumably all humanity. It’s a visceral poem that recounts the speaker’s vicarious participation in the most brutal, almost bestial, fight to the death with another, when she was was within her ‘kinsman’s flesh …and skull’ and experienced his wounds as if they were her own. In a nightmarish other reality she performs with her kinsman the bloodthirsty, merciless hacking and ripping of the enemy, when they ‘struck and tore again/ The jumping flesh…and drank the blood…’ This is bestial, desperate, all-consuming and the other’s death is terrifying as she sees the ‘curve of horror’ and comprehends the ‘speech within the speechless eye’.

The poem begins enigmatically with simply -stated paradoxes… ‘the long- dead living forest…as white as bone as dark as hair’. The similes suggest something almost human with bones and hair, and Tthe collection of these ghostly ideas images, including the notion that this monochromatic forest ‘rose’ sets an atmosphere of unreality, of spectral shapes becoming apparent, as if appearing on a blank screen, of some sort of alternative- or virtual- ancient time and space taking form. Paradoxical statements continue as the speaker reveals that she witnessed a fight ‘for [her] life; and

4

[she] was there’. She- a modern womanour contemporary- is at once witnessing a scene from long ago, and present at that scene where she is some sort of prize, or her potential to come into existence is some sort of prize. It’s very enigmatic. The atmosphere is charged with high emotion- the fight is ‘in rage’ and it’s a fight to the death which is paradoxically a fight for her life. It is somehow muted and distant…refracted…this peculiar distancing is achieved through the double past that is presented…she is giving an account of a past experience in which she experienced the past.

“Protagonists” - who are they? The word suggests leading men, heroes – antagonistic protagonists representing different sides in some sort of struggle?? They are ‘old protagonists’ and this bitter struggle is of long-standing. ??I don’t think this is going to be very productive…

She was within her ‘kinsman’s flesh …and skull’ and experienced his wounds as if they were her own. In this nightmarish other reality she is performs with her kinsman the bloodthirsty, merciless hacking and ripping when they ‘struck and tore again/ The jumping flesh…and drank the blood…’ This is bestial, desperate, all-consuming and the other’s death is terrifying as she sees the ‘curve of horror’ and comprehends the ‘speech within the speechless eye’.

This poem is about the speaker’s recognition of the darkest aspects of her human nature, feelings and impulses that she has in common with her ancestors and presumably all humanity. It’s a visceral poem that recounts the speaker’s vicarious participation in the most brutal, almost bestial, fight to the death with another, when she was

Generalities, interpretationsETHDIt’s a conundrum. It’s a reductio ad absurdum.It’s a complaint.It’s wry and resigned.

WTMIt’s a mystery.It begins more profound the deeper you go into the mystery. This has to do with the texture of the imagery and the adamant confidence of the speaker. It’s an avowal.It’s celebratory and, finally, overawed by its insights into

Comparisons, resonances, links

Wright’s poetry explores the ways that [the softer values of ] imagination and feeling are devalued in favor of [the harder values of] so-called rationalism. Discuss.

Woman to Man and Eve to her daughters

5

“The set of Judith Wright poems explores ideas which suggest that the particular experience of women, or female experience, has been undervalued; just as women’s opportunities for joy and fulfilment have been limited by the assumptions and values of society.”

Using this statement as a framework, plot out how you would link ALL of the poems in the set to it, or parts of it…

Many of Wright’s poems explore the ways that imagination and feeling are now devalued in favor of the harder values of so-called rationalism. Discuss, with specific reference to the following poems:

Judith Wright’s poetry seems to challenge contemporary western values that aggrandize ideas like consumerism, rationalism, economic progress, and individual self-realisation. Instead, the poems explore ways in which human experience is collective and interconnected, across genders, generations and cultures, inextricably linked and cumulative. Many poems suggest that profound and mysterious connections amongst people, and between people and the physical world have been neglected or abused.

Student writingDouble image

Eternity juxtaposed against finality. Perpetual generational cycle. The idea of existing within and outside of ancestors and descendants.

It is difficult to put a label on the poem Double Image and to say, the poem is about this. It is contradictory and paradoxical, the speaker existing in the present, the past; as a separate entity and within another being. The “long-dead living forest” seems to exist physically, and also as a metaphysical symbol in the heart of the speaker. The protagonists are equally as ambiguous. The balanced pairs of paradoxes (also present in Woman to Man), such as “when one must die, not knowing death,/ and one knows death who cannot die.” create ambiguity and enigma.This poem subtly handles the innate brutality of human nature, and the ingrained desire to survive. It spans what could be any amount of time, at any point in time, not speaking directly of any particular era or event in history. It has a cyclical nature of things existing within things, represented in the paradox “[they] fought for my life; and I was there.”The dramatic battle to the death, and for the life of the speaker is a contradiction in itself.

Judith Wright- Views and ValuesMany of Wright’s poems explore the ways that imagination and feeling are now devalued in favour of the harder values of so-called rationalism. Discuss, with specific reference to the poems.

Eve to Her Daughters displays that intense determination to find scientific explanation for all in the world as Adam strives to ‘unravel everything.’That sense that he is unpicking things seems unnecessary and even selfish driven by the want for recognition over inventing them. Unclear.His pursuit in finding reason extends further as he begins to create things to make a ‘new Eden’ supposedly for the greater good- ‘for Abel and Cainand the rest of the family’. Yet the long list is both gratuitous and drawn out mirroring how unnecessary these inventions are. Stick to the language…show me how it works…don’t just

6

claim…This loss of imagination and sensitivityexcellent, but where is it? The flotsam of modern life??? is shown as the rational thought leads to a destruction of all that is organic and natural in favour of a more mechanical world filled with ‘mechanical harvesters and combustion engines.’ Swapping richness for sterility and order also marks how instead of reconstructing Eden and the paradise they are moving further away from it. Prove it!

Also within Smalltown Dance the experience of imagination and of dreaming of a better future are reined in as rationalism prevailssides. The opportunities for joy or fulfilment have been limited by the assumption and values of society. Excellent. Develop this discussion. The ‘ancient dance’ proves to be both long-standing and well-known. ?? Like something which can be recited it is as much a chore as the image of folding sheets is. ??? The concise instructions of ‘two forward steps’ show how restrictive the dance and the values projected are. Suggest…develop…Where one foot wrong could disrupt or break the machine which works like clockwork. The theme we avoid the word theme…of rationalism continues as they find the ‘square-root of a sheet,’ where the behaviour is almost mathematical and measured. So what are the implications of this. Your commentary is very descriptive and needs to grow more out of a close analysis of the poem itself.

The women are acutely aware of the constraints and limits which stop them for reaching fulfilment and accomplishment. There is an air of sadness and resignation as the speaker details the restrictions which progressively become more tangible and threatening. From the ‘limit of opportunity’ it moves to a physical barrier ‘the fence’ and then further to ‘how little chance there is of getting’ which conjures that sense of claustrophobia and suffocation. The repetition of the boundaries they feel also sounds like a recitation as if it has been drummed into them so they can never forget where they stand. Yes good…but it could be more detailed and more developed.

These values of order, certainty and rationalism contrast with the joyful and enchanting childhood experience which interrupts Smalltown Dance. Wedged between two stanzas which emphasise a controlled environment the interlude of warmth and freedom is refreshing.It shows how childhood is the epitome of imagination and free-wheeling emotions where rationalism and common sense is almost non-existent. Prove it…don’t spend so long claiming things in mid air.The possibilities seem endless only being ‘roofed’ by the sky and surrounded by unobstructed waiting green’ gives that sense that the sky and your own imagination isf the limit. Good. These organic and natural images also highlight the distinction between the lushness and fertility of imagining anything against the limits placed by order and sterility. Where?? The cupboard?It also shows a heightened awareness and experience of emotions and surroundings. A welcome onslaught on the senses where everything when you are small is felt more intensely, the colours of the blue sky and ‘unobstructed green’ and the aroma of ‘high-scented walls.’ The touch of the sheets which ‘wrapped and comforted’ really amplifies how imagination and innocence transforms it into a sign of welcome warmth, compared with the third stanza where it may be seen as restriction. I agree with you but I don’t find the way you’re describing it very convincing. You’re gushing a bit. Get a bit closer to the language of the text…

Woman to man

Woman to man describes this makes it sound pretty flat the sacred creation of a new life, and the complexities that the new life brings to the world. Is this

7

right? Is it the best way of saying it? The union between man and woman is depicted through descriptions of the masculine ‘strength that your arm knows’ and the feminine ‘arc of flesh that is my breast’. The polarities of male and female merge to create a new life, and ‘the precise crystals of our eyes’ unites them as they gaze into each other’s eyes. Their eyes are not fused…I don’t think you’re getting close enough to the language.The ‘wild tree that grows’ and the ‘intricate and folded rose’ highlight the infinite complexity of human anatomy, and reinforce the image of planting a seed within the woman. This is a bit like giving a ‘translation’. Do these images reinforce the masculine/ feminine polarities that you have mentioned? How are these ideas expressed? Based on this description, what is the speaker’s attitude to sex?

The ‘selfless, shapeless seed’ of the child is described as ‘our hunter and our chase’, ‘the maker and the made’, ‘the question and the reply’. The series of paradoxes suggests that the child is all-encompassing, embodying all the paradoxes, being both the hunter, seeking life, and the chase, the object of woman and man’s natural, innate instinct to procreate. The child is both ‘the maker’, who makes the couple’s union, brings them together, and ‘the made’, the creation, the result of the chase. Yes. But again, I would like you to try to do more with the images, the implications of the words themselves and the tone of the speaker’s voice. For instance, I think you miss whatever is there in the first pair that you list…

The child is depicted as a ‘selfless, shapeless seed’, unformed and incomplete. Good but it would have been better if you hadn’t stolen the thunder of the quote by mentioning it before and then repeating it.The woman says that ‘this is no child with a child’s face’;, it is not yet fully formed. But it has a face? The face of a child? Or it has no face? Yet inherent in this incompletion incompleteness is a sense of intimacy between the couple, that ‘this has no name to name it by: yet you and I have known it well.’ The child is a secret they share, ‘silent and swift and deep from sight’, their own precious creation. But in some ways it’s much more her secret and her experience isn’t it? What is she articulating to the child’s father? Why? The child, while being ‘the third who lay in our embrace’, an appendage better word? of the man and woman, also has a trace of autonomy- it ‘foresees the unimagined light’, it has innate instincts and is ‘butting at the dark’, knowing intuitively how to come into the world. Good. Impatient? Brutal? Oblivious to the woman’s body? It ‘builds for its resurrection day’- preparing for the day it will come to life, the day it will become a child with a child’s face. No- tell me how this is working- don’t use the language of the poem to account for the language of the poem…or at least not without discussing the language of each instance and the significance of the connection.

Whilst the woman has untied united…typo..freudian anagram with the man to create a new life, and assumes responsibility for her child, she exudes an air of vulnerability when she says ‘Oh hold me, for I am afraid.’ Perhaps she is afraid of the responsibility of ‘the selfless, shapeless seed [she] hold[s]’, the total dependence the child has upon her, and the burden of carrying the child, of holding its life in her hands. She may be afraid of the beginning of the new life, and what it will mean for her as the mother. In any case, she appeals to the man, good wanting to feel ‘the strength that your arm knows’,

8

to share the fear, and perhaps also the joy, of their creation. Yes…but don’t let your prose get too purple…

Well done. Well worth the effort…and keep on coming back to it… 8/10

The Dark Ones/ Eve to Her Daughters/ South of My Days

On the surface The Dark Ones describes the oppression and racial discrimination of the Aborigines. Shunned by the dominant European race, like intruders in their own home country- does the word ‘intruders’ exactly match the way that they are ‘shunned’, When they are described as spirits it evokes a sense of the fear and alarm within the white people focus precisely on the language of the poem and identify the point of view: who is speaking? as though their foreignism foreignness is something wickedly supernatural- something evil.

In Eve To Her Daughters, Eve says Adam believes “what cannot be demonstrated, doesn ’t exist” depicting suggesting thathow he has lost his faith in “God and the Other”, believing instead in rationality and scientific proof. Therefore this too could be a reason for the “white folk” disliking the “dark ones” as it is a way of avoiding guilt and shame. They are transformed into spirits by whom? because in this way they are not “real people”, instead vacuous and empty, and therefore don’t require the same treatment as other human beings. Where is this in the language? Show me how this works…This notion of rationality and scientific proof devouring subsuming?humanity’s sensitivity to true emotion and feeling is embodied in Adam’s “new Eden”- artificial, cold ?? mechanical? and industrial- a consumerist world. Good. Like the European people attempting to control the Aboriginal “spirits”, it is as though he Adam is afraid of losing control of something so mysterious and unknown, the Earth???I’m not sure what this means?

The long list of Adam’s “creations” are over empowering and domineering as though hungrily swallowing up overwhelming? the land itself. In the same way in South of My Days the anomalous plants seem to suffocate and smother the stark beauty of the Australian landscape. Good. The land is sensitive and fragile beneath the elaborateness and irregular lusciousness lushness? of the foreign plants, like intruders in this world It as though through her poetry Wright is attempting to illustrate why not just say that she does it…give her credit… the disillusionment??? of foreign intruders within Australia- as they completely miss the point of it good.Although the white people- again, this would be more effective if you had identified the point of view or the identity of the voice in The Dark Ones view the Aborigines as threatening, there is also a sense of awe and wonder in their deep connection to “the night” and land. The description of them as spirits evokes a limitlessness about them, as though their presence is everlasting, it belongs within this setting. terrificIn contrast, the white people lack all substance for they are mere “faces of pale stone”. Like the cold artificiality of Adam’s creations, there is no vitality excellent or ambiguity, just a simple straightforwardness this sounds like a compliment!, bland and unfeeling- goodThis sense of the perpetual connection that the Aboriginal people have with the land is also embodied in the speaker’s voice of South of My Days. There is constancy in the almost epic this is a very European masculinist notion…can you find other ways of describing this?? Mythic? descriptions of the “high lean country”. The stories the speaker knows seem to be eternally engraved in the land and will continue to exist there while she goes “walking in her sleep”. Excellent There is the sense that she speaks of the mysterious and mythical Aboriginal stories for they are a part of “her blood’s country”, the strong bloodline of her ancestors which forms an intrinsic thread throughout the land excellent

9

The idea of continuous threads through generations is also embodied in Eve to Her Daughters in her realization that her daughters, as much as she attempts to warn them, “inherit” her own “ faults of character”, and will unfortunately “submissively” follow their husbands this is a bit of a summary…

Well, you really hit the nail on the head several times in this discussion. Excellent work. Read my comments and ensure that you follow what I’m suggesting. Get back to me if you want to talk about it more.

Tips for the Outcome:The discussion seems more successful when you link the overarching statement to a single poem and then move into a comprehensive discussion of the poem. When the opportunity arises, or when the time is right, show the connections with another poem and move into a comprehensive discussion of this next poem. Your close analysis of the poem/s should be implicitly a discussion of the statement. So don’t spend a lot of time talking about the statement’s ideas in general terms and mentioning how it applies to several poems…Try to keep the poems separate and make your links through a reference to the statement. Thus,

The belief that human experience is collective and interconnected, across generations is explored in Double Image. The speaker exists within her forbear as indicated by the line “My kinsman’s flesh, my kinsman’s skull/enclosed me”. But she is not merely a passive witness to his actions… (this is from a student.)

and

In the poem South of my Days Old Dan’s self-aggrandizing stories exemplify contemporary Western values which override and obliterate any recognition or sensitivity to the fragility and beauty of the Australian landscape.

Dan’s stories, represent him as the hero of this epic struggle against drought and deprivation… (I pinched these ideas from a student.)

VCE Literature, Unit 3Outcome 2: Views and Values in the poetry of Judith Wright

You have a double period in which to complete the following task.

Choose one of the following statements about the views and values that presented in Judith Wright’s poetry. Discuss the statement with detailed reference to no more than three poems.

1. “Wright’s poetry challenges contemporary Western views and values that emphasise the significance of individual achievement, consumerism, the promotion of science rather than spirituality, reason and rationality rather than imagination and feeling.”

OR2. “Judith Wright’s poetry reflects her political commitment to the

environment and the rights of Indigenous Australians.”OR

10

3. Judith Wright’s poetry encourages us to see that human experience is collective and interconnected, across generations and cultures.

OR4. Judith Wright’s poetry values imagination and passion more highly than

self-control and reason.

11

2005

Woman to ChildYou who were darkness warmed my fleshwhere out of darkness rose the seed.Then all a world I made in me;all the world you hear and seehung upon my dreaming blood.

There moved the multitudinous stars,and colored birds and fishes moved.There swam the sliding continents.All time lay rolled in me, and sense,and love that knew not its beloved.

O node and focus of the world;I hold you deep within that wellyou shall escape and not escape.that mirrors still your sleeping shape;that nurtures still your crescent cell.

I wither and you break from me;yet though you dance in living lightI am the earth, I am the root,I am the stem that fed the fruit,the link that joins you to the night.

Fire SermonSinister powers, the ambassador said, are movinginto our rice fields. We are a little peopleand all we want is to live..But a chemical rain descendinghas blackened the fields, andwe ate the buffalo because we were starving.Sinister powers,. he said;and I look at the newsreel childcrying, crying quite silently, here in my house.I can’t put out a hand to touch her,that shadow printed on glass.And if I could? I look at my hand.This hand, this sinister powerand this one here on the right sidehave blackened your rice fields,my child, and killed your mother.In the temple the great gold Buddhasmiles inward with half-closed eyes.All is Maya, the dance, the veil,Shiva’s violent dream.Let me out of this dream, I cry.I belong to a simple peopleand all we want is to live.It is not right that we slay our kinsmen,Arjuna cried. And the answer?What is action, what is inaction?By me alone are they doomed and slain.A hard answerfor those who are doomed and slain.All is fire,.. said the Buddha, .all.sight, sense, all forms.They burn with the fires of lust,anger, illusion.Wherefore the wise man Be a lamp to yourself. Be an island.Let me out of this dream, I cry,but the great gold Buddhasmiles in the templeunder a napalm rain.* * * *

The Dark OnesOn the other side of the roadthe dark ones stand.Something leaks in our bloodlike the ooze from a wound.

In the town on pension daymute shadows glide.The white talk dies awaythe faces turn aside.

A shudder like breath caughtruns through the town.Are they still here? We thought . . .Let us alone.

The night ghosts of a landonly by day possessedcome haunting into the mindlike a shadow cast.

Day has another side.Night has its time to live,a depth that rhymes our pridewith its alternative.

Go back. Leave us alonethe pale eyes sayfrom faces of pale stone.They veer, drift away.

Those dark gutters of grief,their eyes, are gone.With a babble of shamed reliefthe bargaining goes on.* * * *

12

Use one or more of the passages selected as the basis for a discussion of the poetry of Judith Wright.

2006

The Company of LoversWe meet and part now over all the world.We, the lost company,take hands together in the night, forgetthe night in our brief happiness, silently.

We who sought many things, throw all awayfor this one thing, one only,remembering that in the narrow gravewe shall be lonely.

Death marshals up his armies round us now.Their footsteps crowd too near.Lock your warm hand above the chilling heartand for a time I live without my fear.

Grope in the night to fi nd me and embrace,for the dark preludes of the drums begin,and round us, round the company of lovers,Death draws his cordons in.* * * *

Woman to ManThe eyeless laborer in the night,the selfless, shapeless seed I hold,builds for its resurrection day—silent and swift and deep from sightforesees the unimagined light.

This is no child with a child’s face;this has no name to name it by:yet you and I have known it well.This is our hunter and our chase,the third who lay in our embrace.

This is the strength that your arm knows,the arc of fl esh that is my breast,the precise crystals of our eyes.This is the blood’s wild tree that growsthe intricate and folded rose.

This is the maker and the made;this is the question and reply;the blind head butting at the dark,the blaze of light along the blade.Oh hold me, for I am afraid.

* * *

Smalltown DanceTwo women find the square-root of a sheet.That is an ancient dance:arms wide: together: again: two forward steps: hands meetyour partner’s once and twice.That white expansereduces to a neatcompression fitting in the smallest spacea sheet can pack in on a cupboard shelf.

High scented walls there were of flapping whitewhen I was small, myself.I walked between them, playing Out of Sight.Simpler than arms, they wrapped and comforted—clean corridors of hiding, roofed with blue—saying, Your sins too are made Monday-new;and see, aheadthat glimpse of unobstructed waiting green.Run, run before you’re seen.

But women know the scale of possibility,the limit of opportunity,the fence,how little chancethere is of getting out. The sheets that tugsometimes struggle from the peg,don’t travel far. Might symbolisesomething. Knowing where danger liesyou have to keep things orderly.The household budget will not stretch to more.

And they can demonstrate it in a dance.First pull those wallowing white dreamers down,spread arms: then close them. Foldthose beckoning roads to some impossible world,put them away and close the cupboard door.* * * *

13