Ned Baker's Burning Poetry

‘Be Good, Little Migrants’ is a simple eight five-lines stanza poetry composed from the composer personal experience as she flee from Vietnam during the Vietnamese Civil War. Alongside with a theme of sarcasm to the Australian society and the racism against the migrants, the title itself show the sense of how Australian society treated migrants as little children. In this poem the composer portrayed the appropriate ways migrants must behave and how thankful they must be, these migrants only fit into the mainstream of the migrants class, which is what to be called “cheap” and are loyal to the society as shown in stanza two.

Similarly, how a person is treated where they live can drastically change their sense of self. This is visible for the whole duration of the poem Australia (By Walwicz) through the distinct voice of the persona. Through the use of Allegory and very basic language, it helps make an emphasis on every word, this quote taken from the novel interprets the statement beforehand, “you big ugly. you too empty.”. The writer portrays her emotion as they are and does not elaborate on them because of her poor English in the poem which also depicts that she is an outsider to Australia as a country and illustrates her as different to the rest of the population that is fluent in English. The poet feels limited because of the way that the Australian culture treats new people and how she wasn't accepted into the community. The examples

Australia’s identity has always been a complicated one. Starting with Aboriginal genocide, 1800’s cowboys and villains, two world wars and a bunch of poems describing them, it makes it difficult to conclude on what being an ‘Aussie’ really is. Thankfully, the two thought-provoking poems Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore by Komninos Zervos, and My Country by Dorothea Mackellar both use their discerning selection of themes to reflect modern attitudes in some extent. Along with their themes, Nobody Calls Me a Wog Anymore and My Country both use their story to capture the attributes modern Australians possess to some degree.

For as long as it can be remembered people have used multiple forms of literature in order to gain knowledge, entertain, and even express a certain idea. Poetry is in fact one of those forms of literature, and before people began to write it, it was known to be told verbally by many. A person would tell a tale and those who listened would memorize it, what eventually caused poetry to spread around. Still to this day, many come to fall in love with the magic poetry possesses. It is the writer’s decision to either have a specific rhythm to it or just have a simple list of words. This essay argues that poetry is a creative way of expressing one's emotions and that it should be, not only preserved, but celebrated, even by those who have not considered themselves poetry fans in the past.

Tripod and The Presets discuss the issue of the Australian government’s poor response to the refugee crisis in the protest poems, My People, and Santa.

However, it is much easier to read about man and do nothing, than to see it and do nothing. One should be aware of the freedom expressing one’s convictions boldly and forthrightly. Whether it is about mankind or not. Positive or negative ideas are always shown. They can uplift the human spirit or condemn it. Society picks out individual ideas and throws away what might seem too radical. One must wonder why. Is there something we need to know, who knows. It seems that in a country were freedom of speech is promoted, it is also taken away. On must push forward for new knowledge. Whether it comes from societies rejected ideas or not. Poems can be or are the most pure form of expression. It can do many marvelous things to man.

The Australian Identity is a dynamic and ever-changing thing that is shaped by Australia. The Australian Identity can be captured in the poems “Fifteen Years in a Refugee Camp!” and “The Australian”. “The Australian” is a poem that shows the elements of the Australian Identity present in pioneer farmers and workers and how things were in the years of old. The poem “Fifteen Years in a Refugee Camp” is a poem that described life in a refugee camp by comparing it to aspects of everyday life, this represents other aspects of the Australian Identity like how we accept to many refugees and have nowhere to put them.

The poem as a whole appear to be a metaphor for, or symbolic of the depression and loneliness felt by the speaker . In the very first line “I have been one acquainted with the night” (I. 1), tells that the speaker knows of the ‘night’ (a metaphor for loneliness and depression). The speaker also personifies the night by being ‘acquainted’ with it. In the second line, the usage of the word ‘rain’ is a metaphor for life’s problems, which the speaker seems to be immersed with . In the third and fourth lines, the speaker uses hyperbole when he says “I have outwalked the furthest city light/ I have looked down the saddest city lane” (I. 3; II. 1), a feat not humanly possible, because the farthest city light would suggest the end of the city, and the word ‘saddest’ is a relative emotion. The words “city light” is also symbolic of a community and friends, which the speaker is trying to

Patrick Gillespie, in his article “Let Poetry Die,” argues that poetry is dying, and we should let it. He explains that the public lost interest in poetry because modern poets refused to accept their criticism. This caused the quality of poetry to decrease. Gillespie believes that the solution to this problem is to “[l]et [p]oetry [d]ie [s]o that it can be reborn” (Gillespie 4).

At the beginning of this course, I didn’t realize that my poems would be read aloud to the whole class and that other students would be given the opportunity to tear into them. So, when the line, “Nine years before Gucci - hold onto the pole”, from my poem “Carcajou Dreams” was read aloud, I quickly realized how silly my words sounded and that I was going to need to write poetry with a bit more substance. However, even though “Carcajou Dreams” wasn’t the best thing I wrote in the class, it still made people laugh, which made me want to write more. But I knew I needed to dive deeper into the craft of poetry and grow, so I attempted to explore more artistic topics when writing my next three poems, “Basque”, Homonym”, and “Y.” And as I continued writing, these poems taught me how to clean up my work and develop a specific tone.

Since the inception of writing, many artists have used their creative penmanship to express themselves. From journal articles to poems, countless texts have been written and printed. Among these writers exist an elite upper class of creative artists who dip their pens into poetry. Throughout time, the art of writing poetry has proven to be a useful and insightful manner of propagating ideas and emotions. Poetry posses an advantage in the way that its artists can create relatable landscapes for readers to enjoy. Over time, many poets have made their mark on the art form and advanced its movement. As poets evolve and create, so do the movements in which they partake. Modernism, which was really thrust into life by poets like Ezra Pound and T.S

I am a psychology student with an English minor. While the combination seems odd at first glance, the two studies actually compliment each other quite nicely. I have always been fascinated by the way in which writing can reflect the inner workings of an author's mind, by the way it effects the reader in such a profound, defamiliarizing way, as well as by the way that it can be used to explore the many facets of human nature in a much more effective way than any research study. Because of this thought process I have been particularly interested in several of the poets that we have looked at and their exploration of the effects of the forces of

“Lyrical Ballads” established such a new theory of poetry that it is used to mark the end of the Neo-Classical period of literature and the beginning of the Romantic period. One of the most touching pieces of poetry in the collection is William Wordsworth’s “What is a Poet?” This poem spoke to the core of my being and broke down barriers that I had been building in my mind years. It had such powerful effects on me because, I have always enjoyed the beauty of poetry but my relationship with it has dealt mostly with the rhythm in rhyme. I’ve been performing live with musicians at open mics for eight years now. I never enjoyed being called a rapper and I never considered myself an actual poet because, I have no recordings nor published poetry to show for. Even though poetry has always been a part of my life, I’ve consider it more of a personal release than my life’s work. In “What is a Poet”, William Wordsworth described the poetic soul with such depth and accuracy that while I read it, I became completely aware of the fact that I am a true poet. I have lived with this art form and chased the freedom in it for years because recording has always felt so slavish and mechanical. William Wordsworth’s ability to reflect upon his own poetry and the practice of poetry in general was absolutely astounding. In this poem he expressed the qualities of a poet, the obligations of a poet, and the common sentiments of poets alike with such perspective that every word still profoundly

“The world gives you so much pain and here you are making gold out of it.” (Kaur, 185) This excerpt from Rupi Kaur’s collection of confessional poems, Milk and Honey, shows her feelings towards poetry as an art. It explains how the confessional style of poetry allows artists to transform their pain and feelings into art. Art is always changing, new ideas are brought about, artists create with different purposes. The art of poetry is constantly evolving, poets introduce different ideas and styles based on the message they are trying to portray. The confessional style of poetry is one that allows the poet to speak freely; it is personal and allows the author to share emotions, thoughts, and feelings. Within the last decade the confessional style of poetry has changed because of the growth of certain social issues. It has become a way for poets to express their feelings towards topics like these or describe their personal experiences in a poetic way. Writing in the confessional style of poetry has allowed poets to have more freedom in recent years to discuss and write their feelings towards specific, pressing topics such as feminism and mental illnesses.

“…poetry has primarily to do with the expression of feeling and emotion: and […] feeling and emotion are particular; whereas thought is general. It is easier to think in a foreign language than it is to feel in it. Therefore, no art is more stubbornly national than poetry. A people may have its language taken away from it, suppressed, and another language compelled upon the schools; but unless you teach that people to feel in a new language, you have not eradicated the old one, and it will reappear in poetry, which is a vehicle of feeling.” (T.S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets, London: Faber and Faber: 5th