Diane Gilliam Fisher's Kettle Bottom

The depiction of the struggles of motherhood in both poems evokes feelings from the audience of sympathy and appreciation for their hardship. Instead of showing motherhood as a stereotypical ideal and being an intrinsic source of happiness, Bruce Dawe and Gwen Harwood suggest that motherhood and the duties surrounding it can lead to despair. ‘Up the Wall’ portrays the struggles through visual imagery and negative connotation and expresses the mental toll and frustrations of maternal responsibility through dialogue. “The kettles plainsong rising to a shriek” represents the tension in the home and the mother’s frustrations and anger reaching its limits. The use of “always” in the second line demonstrates that there is no respite from domestic rituals and that she is in a constant routine.

Donald Bruce Dawe was born in 1930 in Geelong, Victoria, Melbourne, he is one of the most successful and prolific contemporary poets of Australia. He struggled with his studies, leaving school when he was sixteen, working as a gardener and postman. In 1954 he entered the University of Melbourne. He grew up in a household where his father, a farm labourer, was often unemployed and absent from home. The poem ‘Drifters’ by Bruce Dawe should be selected for the prestigious honour of ‘Best Contemporary Australian Poem’ as it is a realism poem, describes Australian lifestyle felicitously, which lead the Australian contemporary audiences easily fall in the poem and deeply engraved in their mind. Bruce Dawe drifted

Bruce Dawe, one of the most influential Australian poets of his time was known for using his poems as a way to efficiently discuss the matters in society of his time and how this follows through generation, thus becoming a significant matter for his modern audience. Both Dawe’s poems The Not So Good Earth and Up The Wall have successfully demonstrated the issues of the complacency of our society towards the world around us and their issues and the disconnection this thenceforth creates in everyday life and how this impacts the individual. Dawe’s poem, Up The Wall, truly validates the impact of the suburban, everyday lifestyle on the individual and how the loneliness this creates can push someone to the edge. Dawe’s use of onomatopoeia with the abrupt words of “shrieked” and “screams” really imposes that internal struggle the woman was experiencing.

When writing a collection of poems, most poets chose to focus on maintaining certain themes throughout their literature and Cornelius Eady is not an exception. Cornelius Eady’s collection of poems in Brutal Imagination focus on issues such as racism, family crisis, internal conflict, and death. The first part of the collection circles around a servant who works for Susan Smith and is the caretaker for her children. The story centers around the perspective of the servant who is also the overarching narrator. The story describes old version of United States when racism was still bluntly present and affected individuals identities and financial opportunities. Based off the information presented in the collection, the servant can possibly be male. The general plot follows deeply into the difficult life of the male servant through examining the issues he faces. The first poem within the collection set-ups the rest of the story with context for the readers giving them a few expectations about what they should look forward to reading further. Eady draws the reader through integrating an origin for the male servant and his connection to Susan Smith’s family.

Gilbert’s poem portrays many Aboriginals plight’s within Australia and conveys notions of despair, anguish and anger for his fellow Aboriginal comrades. Again, Gilbert uses strong visual imagery in “the anguished death you spread” which helps convey the persona’s feeling of horror and anger at the Europeans. This is further emphasised through the poet’s vehement and repetitive use of second person pronouns in “you” which conveys a sense of blame and accumulates into an accusatory tone and generates a strong sense of detachment between the author and the European settlers. Furthermore enjambment enhances the accusatory tone in “you pollute all the rivers and litter every road” because the lack of punctuation and pauses makes the lines sharp and quick, creating a sense of anger in the author. In addition the author’s use of metaphors in “humanity locked in chains” creates a sense of struggle and inability to escape the oppression the Aboriginals are in, whereby the word “chain” is symbolic for trapped and lack of freedom. Kevin Gilbert’s emotional poem brings light to the pain and suffering Aboriginals are going through, which is a stark contrast to the image of Australia, being a free and accepting

The clever use of vocabulary to describe the digger assists the audience in visualising the digger, for example, “his body ached from the marching,” “the old digger then climbed to his feet” and the repeated use of the term “old digger”. The striking use of the words “ached” and “climbed” emphasize his age. The repeated use of the word hero, emphasises the theme of the poem. Hamilton also uses simple, but very effective language. The words and phrases are carefully chosen in this poem, making the poem easier to comprehend. Punctuation enhances the flow of the poem, such as the use of dashes after phrases for pauses. The use of direct speech throughout the poem offers depth to the poem, it immerses the audience into the moment and the conversation as though they were

Slessor is without doubt one of Australia’s great poets as his poetry invites us to feel and think about human experience in new ways. He shapes meaning in his poems through the use of sophisticated and appropriate language. Within the poem “Beach Burial” Slessor provides various insights on how the human condition is questioned and allows the reader to experience personal encounters with death, loss and grief that he laments throughout this poem, thereby underlining the futility of war. He also demonstrates the everyday struggles during the Great Depression in Kings Cross within the poem “William Street” during the financial state in the 1930s.

Robert Gray is an Australian poet whose work is closely linked with nature. He grew up in the post ww11 era, and lives on the north coast. The poems ‘The Meatworks’, and ‘Flames and Dangling Wire’, express how he feels about life, his experiences and his beliefs. His poetry has such an enduring nature because it can be understood in so many different contexts, and includes universal themes which remain relevant to societies past, present and future.

In order to convey the trait of poverty, Erdrich employs the use of imagery, even the setting reflects their impoverished state. In the beginning of the novel, the road leading towards the reservation is described as having “ruts” and “holes” (11). The surrounding land “was a dull tan – the dry ditches, the dying crops” (11). Erdrich’s visual imagery gives the reader a mental image of a desolate environment. In addition, Erdrich references dust twice on page eleven, giving the impression of the prairies during the dustbowl, which occurred during the 1930’s when the world was going through the Great Depression, allowing the reader to subconsciously connect the environment of the reservation as poor, neglected and bleak. The grim environment creates sympathy for the female characters, many of whom live on the reservation. In addition, there is the alliteration of the letter “d”. This emphasises the poverty in which these characters live in by bringing attention to the “dull”, “dry” and “dying” environment of the reservations. Despite the despondent surroundings, Erdrich’s poetic style pushes the reader to consider this environment as a home, rather than merely a disgusting

This theme of servitude is further emphasised in ‘At a Potato Digging’ by the structure and rhyme scheme. The rhyme scheme is ABAB- it is repetitive and this reflects the monotonous nature of the work. The poem also uses enjambment throughout to symbolise the continuous motion of their labour: ‘Some pairs keep breaking ranks to fetch/ A full creel to the pit and straighten, stand/ Tall for a moment but soon stumble back…’ This example of enjambment between stanzas two and three show us that although the labourers may have moments of dignity and accomplishment they must ‘fall’ back to work in order to survive.

The 1920s were a time of social injustices, primarily revolving around racial discrimination. With the revival of the Ku Klux Klan only a few short years before, African Americans lived in fear of lynching and other forms of racism during this period. This form of social injustice was widespread and known by all in the United States, but there was another issue during this time that was not as well known. The West Virginia mine wars had begun in 1920 due to the injustices that the miners had faced for decades. Miniscule wages and dangerous work conditions were only a few of the hardships that the miners had to face. The author of the book Kettle Bottom, Diane Gilliam Fisher, was able to capture these hardships perfectly in her poetry to help shine light on the terrible treatment and the resulting consequences that the miners and their families received during this time. Many of her poems, such as, “Dear Diary,” “Pearlie Tells What Happened at School,” and “Walter and His Mama Talk about Angels,” show the negative impact that growing up during this period of violence and injustice had had on the miners’ children.

In “September, 1918”, Amy Lowell shows her readers an interesting and illuminating poem. That war can be an ugly time and the people that experience it often seems to live in a “broken world” (19). To fight an evil, sometimes war is needed, nonetheless it is still costly to the people living through the war. Some in a literal sense, like soldiers fighting in a war, while some in a physical sense by the world that they now see and live in. I find the poem truly interesting though, in how the author shows that even in war we can still hold onto hope for more promising days. Lowell portrays a melancholy mood throughout her poem that makes her readers thinking about war but also the hope of it being over.

The Apology Day Breakfast, and, Heart’s Core Lament are two powerful indigenous poems which use poetic techniques and devices to portray theme, times, places and identities. These poems both address the stolen generation and the impact that white colonisation has had on the Australian indigenous community. However, Natalie Harkin’s, Heart’s Core Lament has more impact through using graphic imagery to connect the poem to historical

Sexual harassment was a major problem for the women working in the mine. The men would write horrible slurs about the women in their locker room. Josey would always turn to her boss about the constant sexual aggression towards her. But her boss did not

Judith Wright’s ‘Legend’ responds to various aspects of the human condition present in our society today. The poem is focused primarily on the actions of a Blacksmith’s boy, a vassal for humanity’s growth in response to age and change.