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INSIDE STORIES

A Human Pattern, Selected Poems

by Judith Wright

Teaching notes prepared by Stefaan Steyn

A HUMAN PATTERN – SELECTED POEMS

by Judith Wright.

Teaching notes prepared for by Stefaan Steyn.

Edited by Laura Deriu.

Cover design and formatting by Viveka de Costa.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................... 2

WAYS INTO THE TEXT............................................................................................................ 4

RESEARCH: THE CONTEMPORARY AND HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF

JUDITH WRIGHT'S WRITING .................................................................................................. 6

RUNNING SHEET AND STRUCTURE OF THE TEXT ........................................................... 8

A PERSPECTIVE ON THE TEXT........................................................................................... 14

CHARACTERS ....................................................................................................................... 16

ISSUES AND THEMES .......................................................................................................... 21

LANGUAGE AND STYLE ....................................................................................................... 26

CLOSE STUDY....................................................................................................................... 29

FURTHER ACTIVITIES .......................................................................................................... 34

KEY QUOTES......................................................................................................................... 38

TEXT RESPONSE TOPICS.................................................................................................... 40

TWO GUIDED TEXT RESPONSES ....................................................................................... 41

REFERENCES, RESOURCES AND SUPPLEMENTARY TEXTS......................................... 44

express widely felt emotions in fresh terms. However, Wright's capacity to feel the impact of these influences was intensified by her own personal struggles: including the early loss of her mother at age twelve; her subsequent separation from her family; and the onset of a loss of hearing from age 20, compounding the social isolation she experienced due to the disruption of the Second World War. Just as Wright's sensibility of common Australian experiences would have been intensified by her personal circumstances, her capacity to express these were similarly enhanced. Many factors would have contributed to this: ranging from the status of her father as a prominent pastoralist and community leader (a founder of the University of New England and its First Chancellor, a leading figure in the first Australian conservation movement, and a proto-environmentalist in his battle against the despoliation of the land) to her upbringing by aunts and her grandmother in a prominent New England family, and the involvement of her uncles in the First World War. The impact of Wright's initial university education, exposure to literary life in Sydney, and her travels in England and Europe (including Germany, Austria and Hungary) immediately prior to the outbreak of war cannot be overlooked. Wright's continued exposure to university life and politics, and her involvement in Conservationist and Aboriginal rights organisations throughout her life in various capacities would also play a significant role in shaping her as a poet. Profoundly unique relationships also shaped her writing. The singular impact of her relationship with the eccentric ex-drover, First World War veteran and philosopher Jack McKinney, 23 years her senior, was far reaching. Beyond the profound personal impact of their relationship – which unlocked Wright's emotional isolation, and which saw them move to Queensland together, have a child, and later marry

• Wright can also be said to have found a partner who shared many of her central concerns. McKinney's philosophy attempted to address the inadequacy of Western rationalism to deal with World War and the ravages of modern life by considering the irrational foundations of human experience within the human relationship to nature and within community. Mc Kinney's notions overlapped in many respects with Wright's own central concerns. Just as her life with McKinney would affect her profoundly, his death when she was only 51 would also affect her deeply. After McKinney's death, Judith Wright's friendships with people such as the prominent Aboriginal writer and activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal deepened - her concerns about the land and Australian society converging with theirs. It can be said that Judith Wright came to the issues central to Australian society - the impact of war, the land rights and reconciliation questions, and the concern for the environment - via a personal and relational journey rather than via any ideological route. Her related poetry and political activism thus stemmed from an experiential understanding of these issues.

WAYS INTO THE TEXT

‘Ramona Koval: One of the notable comments that Judith Wright has made publicly is that she doesn't want her poetry taught to schoolchildren. Why? Judith Wright: What I object to is being turned into an instrument of torture for children. [laughs] And that, unfortunately, is what often happens in schools.’ (ABC Interview with Judith Wright, 1999)

Reflections

Go outside of the classroom to a green space - a local park, somewhere on the school grounds, or on excursion. Take time to be completely silent for some minutes and afterwards spend some time individually writing down your impressions. You could either share these impressions in a class discussion, or write them up individually in a reflective piece and then share these within the class.

Ambivalent Nature: Drought, Fire, Floods and Tsunamis

• Reflect on the impact of the ongoing drought and associated water restrictions on your own life. Recall images from your own experience - think of the impact on gardens, recreational areas, and personal life. What activities did you do in earlier times that may not feel the same at present due to the drop in rainfall or intensified heat? What emotions are associated with these earlier times and what emotions are associated with these times of drought? Brainstorm and write down key words. Draw on this material and produce a song or a poem that reflects your personal response to drought.
• In similar terms, other groups or individuals in the class may choose to examine the personal and emotional impact of other fierce elements of the natural world and its impact on our lives. Besides drought, students could examine the personal impact of natural forces such as floods, fire and tsunami - all of these have had a significant impact on recent Australian society.

Emotions and Social Issues - Persuasive Writing

Work individually or in small groups to develop a visual response to one of Judith Wright's poems. After reading a specified poem and reflecting on how it relates to a particular issue, decide what phrases or words you would like to include as a core quote in making a poster which will express your own point of view. Your visual imagery may be suggested by the imagery of the poems. National Reconciliation: 'The Dark Ones' (p. 193), 'Two Dreamtimes' (p. 166) 'At Cooloolah' (p. 83), 'Nigger's Leap: New England' (p. 8) and 'Bora Ring' (p. 2). Environment: 'The Two Fires' (p. 70) 'At Cedar Creek' (p. 204), 'Platypus' (p. 201), 'Dry Storm' (p. 109) 'Drought Year' (p. 50) 'Flood Year' (p. 51) 'Eroded Hills' (p. 49) 'Night after bushfire' (p. 28). Gender: 'Smalltown Dance' (p. 219); 'Eve to her Daughters' (p. 134), 'Woman in Orchard' (p. 2 03) 'Eve Scolds' (p. 194) 'Naked Girl and Mirror' (p. 138) 'Woman to Man' (p. 20) 'Woman's Song' (p. 20).

RESEARCH: THE CONTEMPORARY AND

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF JUDITH

WRIGHT'S WRITING

Some knowledge of Australian society and history is required to grasp Judith Wright's poetry. In addition, understanding some of the contemporary issues which Wright's poetry addresses is also important in understanding its significance. Students might choose a number of the topics below to research via the Internet and present a brief oral summary of the core issues to the class. National Environmental Issues:

• Salination in agricultural land and rivers
• Nuclear Testing and Energy
• The El Nino Effect.
• Aboriginal Land Management
• Murray Darling Basin management
• Pesticide use in farming
• Carbon Trading Scheme
• Pulp Mill Tasmania
• Logging of Old Growth Forests Victorian Environmental Issues:
• Desalination plant, Wonthaggi
• Goulbourn River pipeline
• Windfarms in Gippsland and Ballarat
• Dredging Port Phillip Bay
• Forest burn-offs and tree clearing (‘Black Saturday’) National and Regional Aboriginal Issues:
• Land Rights - The Mabo judgment
• Treaty
• ‘Terra Nullius’
• ‘The Stolen Generation’
• The Federal Apology, Sorry Day
• Aboriginal Languages and Education
• The Federal ‘Intervention’
• ‘Closing the Gap’
• Responses to Federation/ Australia Day Key Figures and Social History:
• Oodgeroo Noonuccal
• Nugget Coombs
• Aboriginal Treaty Committee
• Campaign against mining the Great Barrier Reef
• The Mabo judgment

Links Between Judith Wright's Own Life and Her Poetry

Read the brief timeline of Judith Wright's life. Read the poems listed below and consider how they may have been influenced by personal circumstances or historical events. How does our understanding of these events shape our interpretation of these specific poems? (Keep in mind that the year of publication is not often the year of writing). When is it appropriate to refer to the details of Wright's personal life in our interpretation of her poems,

and when may this distort our understanding of a poem? Which poems have relevance beyond their origins? ‘The Moving Image’ (1946): 'Soldier's Farm' (p. 5), 'South of My Days' (p. 11). ‘Woman To Man’ (1949): 'Woman to Child' (p. 21), 'Spring After War' (p. 24). ‘The Gateway’ (1953) 'Two Songs for the World's End' (p. 62). ‘The Two Fires’ (1955): 'Wildflower Plain' (p. 94). ‘Five Senses’ (The Forest) (1963) 'Q to A' (p. 107), 'Age to Youth' (p. 113), 'Double Image' (p. 1 14). ‘The Other Half’ (1966) 'Turning Fifty' (p. 141). ‘Shadow’ (1970) 'This Time Alone' (p. 146), 'Australia 1970' (p. 152). ‘Alive’ (1973) 'Habitat' (p. 156), 'Two Dreamtimes' (p. 166). ‘Fourth Quarter’ (1976) 'Tightropes' (p. 186), 'The Eucalypt and the National Character' (p. 1 97) 'At Cedar Creek' (p. 207) 'Moving South' (p. 211). ‘Phantom Dwelling’ (1985) 'Victims' (p. 223) 'For a Pastoral Family' (p. 226), 'Rainforest' (p. 2 30), 'Rockpool', (p. 235) 'Skins' (p. 239) 'Dust' (p. 239) 'Winter' (p. 240).

President of the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland (till 1976). Phillip Wright, her father, was a life member of the first Australian Conservation Society and an environmental proto-activist. 1963: Publishes Five Senses: Selected Poems. Begins lifelong friendship with Aboriginal poet and activist Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker). Honorary Doctorate, University of New England. (Her father, its first Chancellor, helped to establish the university.) 1964: Publishes Tentacles: A Tribute to Those Lovely Things and City Sunrise. Australia- Britannica Award, Council member Australian Conservation Foundation (till 1972). 1965: Becomes a member of the Australia Council. 1966: Wright's husband dies. Publishes The Other Half. 1973: Publishes Alive: Poems 1971- 72 , (73-74). Member Committee of Enquiry into the National Estate. 1975: Appointed to Australian National University’s Council as Governor-General's nominee (till 1979). 1976: Publishes Fourth Quarter and Other Poems. Moves from Queensland to Braidwood, ACT, ostensibly as an act of protest against the Queensland government. Honorary Doctorate University of Sydney. 1977: Robert Frost Memorial Award. Honorary Doctorate, Monash University. 1978: Publishes Train Journey and The Double Tree: Selected Poems 1942- 76. 1979 – 1983: Member of the Aboriginal Treaty Committee with friend Nugget Coombs. 1981: Honorary Doctorate, Australian National University. 1984: Australian World Prize (1984). 1985: Publishes Phantom Dwelling. Honorary doctorate from UNSW and Griffith University. Withdraws permission for her poetry's use in schools due to nationalistic misinterpretations. 1988: Honorary Doctorate, University of Melbourne. 1990: Publishes A Human Pattern: Selected Poems. 1991: Resigns as patron of the Wildlife Preservation Society as it doesn't support Aboriginal land rights. 1992: The Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry. 1993: Publishes The Flame Tree. 1994: Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Poetry Award for Collected Poems. 1995: Stops writing poetry actively. 2000: Attends Reconciliation rally in Canberra in late May. Dies in Canberra on June 26 aged 85 of a heart attack.

Structure of the Text

The poems in Judith Wright’s own selection from her collected works are arranged chronologically by publication. Wright’s first collection The Moving Image (1946), published subsequent to poems appearing widely in journals such as Meanjin , presented a survey of the Australian inner landscape. The poetry’s narrative point of view appears to be strongly biographical. Nonetheless, a constructed social mask is presented, rather than a simple personal, intimate self. This apparently ‘naïve’ initial self is an edited representation, a narrative device allowing perspectives beyond Wright’s own to be explored. Poems such as ‘The Company of Lovers’ (p. 2) represent the struggles of wartime Australians to seek some sense of vitality and connection in a disrupted situation. Here, from the start, the social dimension (here, the culture of war) is drawn on to publicly explore private passion (relationships, mortality). Also present from the very inception (‘Bora Ring’, p. 2) is the tension within the Australian culture and psyche around Aboriginal dispossession. As with ‘Nigger's Leap: New England’ (p. 8), the suppressed side to colonial discourse is brought to the surface. The psychological and social implications of this repression of the oppression of Aboriginals are explored. From the start too, poems such as ‘Bullocky’ (p. 9) which celebrate settler icons – the pioneer’s struggle against the land and against isolation and cultural displacement – also present a sense of disquiet and disjunction. Other poems such as ‘South of my Days’ (p. 11) are celebrated for their exploration of the link between the physical landscape and the inner geography of the Australian soul. This is a post-romantic representation and appreciation for the complexities of nature from an Australian point of view. ‘The Moving Image’ (p. 14) presents contemporary Australia as historical drama, unfolding transcendentally from an omniscient point of view. Wright presents the tragic tension within society and the individual: caught between Platonic absolutes and a more subjectively contingent individual point of view. Judith Wright continually juxtaposes these perspectives in her poetry: combining and contrasting multiple perspectives – engaging ‘Nature’, ‘Society’, the ‘Individual’ and the ‘Historical’ in conversation. Judith Wright’s next collection, Woman to Man (1949), represents an integrated biographical and social exploration of female consciousness and sexuality in poems such as ‘Woman to Man’ (p. 20), ‘Woman's Song’ (p. 20) and ‘Woman to Child’ (p. 21). Again, the adoption of an intimate tone and the pseudo-biographical mask of the first person voice enables Wright to partially hide the ideological and more controversial aspects of her exploration of the intimate side of relationships. Wright also integrates the natural and the emotional in thematic terms, as well as poetic convention (standard cross rhyme, hexameter, literary and Biblical references) and an apparently ‘natural’, colloquial idiom. Texts like ‘The Sisters’ (p. 24) and ‘Spring After War’ (p. 24) further Judith Wright’s critical social discourse, drawing on iconic Australian images from nature and the farming life to represent inner emotions and the ambivalence of relationships. In these latter poems, the sense of disquiet and ambiguity within the human psyche is worded in natural terms such as ‘the treacherous earth’ and ‘the gaping flesh’. In the poem ‘The Garden’ (p. 26) for instance, ‘Eve (is) walking with her snake and butterfly.’ Wright further explores the ambiguous complexity of the human relationship with nature and self via poems such as ‘The World and the Child’ (p. 27), “Night After Bushfire’ (p. 28), and ‘Night’ (p. 32). In each instance, a sense of awe, wonder and beauty is intermingled with a

‘this thorny, delicate, tender speech of the flower’. There is again some conciliation as ‘time’s old anger/ become(s) new earth, / to sign to the heart/ the truth of death’. Wright’s following collection Birds: Poems (1962) also relativises the prior elevation of nature. In 'The Forest' (p.104) for instance, ‘those first strange joys are gone’ while a growing sense of mortality extends her search for meaning in more abstract terms beyond the physical world: ‘My search is further./ There’s still to name and know/ beyond the flowers I gather/ that one that does not wither - / the truth from which they grow.’ This ambivalent disquiet is also found in more personally focused writing. 'Q to A' (p.107) voices this: ‘My heart is woe to fear so.’ In 'Praise for the Earth' (p.106) a new philosophical cosmic awareness informs the celebration of nature and society, while the ‘Wild wandering dark’ of 'Dry Storm' (p. 109) presages a ‘darker sky’. This trend is developed in the ironic tone of 'Age to Youth' (p. 113) with its bittersweet consideration of eroticism, and 'Double Image' (p. 114) which considers the continuity between civilisation and savagery within the natural domain. Other poems such as 'Judas in Modern Dress' (p. 115) 'Reason and Unreason', 'For my Daughter' (p.120), 'The Poet' (p.124), and particularly 'The Morning of the Dead' (p.126) clearly demonstrate Wright’s supposed shift to a more abstract consideration of nature and a more socially engaged style of writing. It would be more apt to say that she achieves in these pieces a new integration of a more complex constellation of the worlds of emotion, nature and society. These poems go beyond the experientially based, immediate images of her earlier work while retaining stylistic and thematic continuity. Wright’s next collection The Other Half (1966) expands the complexity and scope of the latter poems in Birds: Poems (1962), particularly in terms of her writing about gender. 'To Another Housewife' (p.132) examines the savagery inherent in civilisation, while 'The Trap' (p.133) explicitly outlines the imprisonment implicit in a supposed free society. The satirical 'Eve to Her Daughters' (p.134) rewrites the Adamic myth and the historical myth of ‘progress’ from a female perspective, in the process questioning patriarchal formulations of religion and culture. Wright also turns her focus upon the human ambivalence to the physical world. 'Typists in the Phoenix Building' (p.137) questions civilisation’s attempts to understand and control nature and the body. In more intimate terms, 'Naked Girl and Mirror' (p.138) outlines the politics of the female body and sexual desire, and the associated ironic tension between animal being and the human mind arising from self-awareness. This paradoxical sense is extended in poems such as 'Turning Fifty' (p.141) and 'Snakeskin on a Gate' (p.140) where the narrator is caught ‘between two realities’ – not only of life and death, but also by implication, between nature and society, the material and the abstract. Wright returns to a supposedly more elevated style in This Time Alone (p.146), written after Jack McKinney’s death. A solitary climb up a mountain interweaves the world of emotion and relationships with the natural landscape - very similarly to Wright’s initial writing. Here the focus and imagery is extended to encompass metaphysical notions in an attempt to transcend death. The masterly poem 'Shadow' (p. 153) explores this fusion between life and death within nature, and also between nature and human consciousness in metaphysical terms reminiscent of the poem 'The Moving Image' (p. 14). Wright presents her most biting social satire in the poems 'Advice to a Young Poet' (p. 149) and 'Australia 1970' (p. 152). Her contempt for consumerism and its effects on nature and society is here most explicitly voiced. Here she ‘praise(s) the scoring drought, the flying dust,/

the drying creek, the furious animal,/ that they oppose us still;/ that we are ruined by the thing we kill.’ The poem 'Habitat' (p. 156) shares a similar deprecating view of the human contingent presence on earth. Equally, the poem 'Two Dreamtimes' (p. 166), written in conversational mode to her friend the Aboriginal activist Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal), is extremely critical of white Australia’s attitudes and actions towards Australian Aboriginals. Like in 'Habitat' (p. 156), Wright extends this satire in self-deprecating terms to herself in 'Some Words' (p.162), demonstrating a growing ironic capacity. Judith Wright’s final self-contained collection Fourth Quarter (1976) is characterised by this ironic, often satirical treatment of a wide range of subjects, ranging from herself and her own poetry in 'Tightropes' (p. 186) to Australian society in 'Canberra: City and Mirage' (p. 193) and 'The Eucalypt and the National Character' (p. 197). This satire is extended to questions of gender politics, as in 'Eve Scolds' (p.194) and 'Eve Sings' (p. 195). At other times Wright treats familiar themes of racial relations and environmental concerns in a more serious manner, taking on a demagogic tone. The poem 'The Dark Ones' (p. 193) pinpoints how white Australia is haunted by the Aboriginal presence, examining the consequences of overlooking its guilt. Similarly, the iconic 'Platypus' (p. 201) undercuts complacency towards environmental degradation: ‘I sit and write/ a poem for your sake/ that follows a word - / platypus, paradox-/ like the ripples of your wake.’ At times, in line with her own growing sense of mortality, Wright seems overcome by despair for the environment, as in 'At Cedar Creek' (p. 204): ‘How shall I remember the formula for poetry?/ This morning I have abandoned the garden./ Too overgrown to recall the shapes we planned/ it flourishes with weeds not native to this country’. This sense of retreat and elegy is also reflected in 'Moving South' (p. 211) and 'For a Pastoral Family' (p. 226), while other poems such as 'Smalltown Dance' (p. 219) and 'Victims' (p. 223) continue Wright’s examination of the social dimensions of captivity and limitation. Wright’s final personal and nature poems such as 'Brevity' (p. 231) and 'Rainforest' (p. 230) again integrate the private emotions of loss, grief and protest with the passions and vitality of nature. Nature which transcends Wright will outlive her and potentially surpass its degradation at human hands. Judith Wright’s final selection from her own work: 'The Shadow of Fire: Ghazals' (p.234) not only outlines these tensions, but offers a characteristically ambivalent consolation.

From a certain perspective Wright the activist poet seemed to have supplanted Wright the poet, campaigning against the Australian way of life, rather than celebrating it. From a particular point of view it appeared that Wright had betrayed her poetic public; while from another she may have seemed to have sacrificed her private poetic voice for the common public good, winning a hearing with those more concerned with public matters of social and ecological justice than nature, personal relationships, private emotion and poetry. However, as much as this first rather superficial point of view is questionable, in that Wright's poetry is critically concerned with social and ecological issues from the start, the second perspective is also somewhat flawed. It must be said that Wright's later poetry remains as concerned with nature and humanity in its more irrational sense as did her early work. The more complex nature of Wright's life and writing resists these kinds of simplifications. In effect, competing strands of thought and apparently conflicting images and values are simultaneously and continually present in her poetry, early and late. Wright can be said to represent a complex landscape and a conflicted society in tension in her poetry. She can be said to explore underlying contradictions explicitly via ambiguous images in a deliberately unrequited search for resolution rather than presenting simplistic images which gloss over complexity and incongruities. It has been said that Wright's core images deliberately cast a shadow which form part of her representation, that she is as much concerned with the repressed and the censored as the self-evident and the widely accepted. Judith Wright certainly attempted to resolve social and ecological tensions through her poetry. She tried poetically to balance that which was unbalanced in reality - pursuing her personal goals via 'The Moving Image' - the world of poetry. It has been claimed that her poetry abandoned this pursuit as she increasingly pursued social and ecological goals in more direct personal, social and political terms. If anything, her imagined landscape conformed more closely with the real landscape of Australian society as it actually was and is - inherently fraught with contradictions, inequalities, conflicts and tensions. From most perspectives it is more difficult to acknowledge that Wright's poetry, and the world she imagined and represented, stands beyond simplification to fit into something neither easily accepted nor rejected. One must acknowledge that her writing, like her own life, and like the interpretation of both, remains continually in tension between the rational and irrational, simultaneously mythologising and de-romanticising the human in personal and social, and environmental terms. In particular, in contemporary Australian society, where many of the values that Wright espoused, are now broadly accepted as being 'quintessentially Australian', one should be careful to baptise Judith Wright herself and her poetry as equally 'quintessentially Australian'. A careful consideration of her poetry may demonstrate that her landscape and her imagery confound our desire to embrace her as a representative voice of a more progressive contemporary Australia. Wright's focus on flux and impermanence means that her ambiguous images will continue to throw shadows which cannot be resolved into convenient interpretations in line with a univocal external social perspective. Many may believe we live in a social context which sees as mainstream many of Wright's core concerns - including the pursuit of personal integrity, equality within relationships, questions of national reconciliation and restitution, environmental responsibility and the quest for a new world order. However, if we claim Judith Wright as a voice of our own time, we may be repeating the mistake of those who previously saw her as a voice for earlier mainstream Australia.

CHARACTERS

Each poem of Judith Wright's has its own distinct style and voice, and it is mistaken to assume a consistent implied or underlying persona throughout Wright's oeuvre. As such, the speaker, the associated tone and language use may vary within a poem, and within a particular collection. While one may often choose to identify the speaker in a particular poem as Wright herself, it may not be appropriate to assume this in each instance. Even if one does choose to identify the speaker as the poet herself, one must account for the many changes in Wright's work as a consequence of the shift in Wright's situation and also in herself. Wright herself comments as follows: ‘Judith Wright: I think through life you change all the time. Sometimes you know you're changing; sometimes you don't. Sometimes you just find that something isn't there any longer that was there. It isn't sad. It's just right. It wasn't worrying me at all. I realise I've been several different people in the course of my life, as we all are. And you've got to give in to that. Ramona Koval: Who are those several different Judith Wrights? Judith Wright: Well we all know how different we were when we were a child, and then when we were a teenager. There's all that tremendous drama of change in becoming grown-up. And then after that you gradually accommodate yourself to enjoy the sweeter aspects of life as you go. I don't think that all those Judith Wrights are surviving, but I do know I remember them.’ 1 Given Wright's comments here, it would be advisable to ground one's understanding about narrative voice, and the contribution of the status of the poetic 'narrator' to the meaning of a poem from within the specific poem itself, rather than depend on extraneous biographical material. Besides the more obvious clues about the status of a narrative voice in Wright's poetry and the degree to which Wright works with a biographical 'mask' that keeps shifting in nature, one should be careful not to identify too closely with Wright herself, other factors should also be considered. Wright's poems are often discursive or melodramatic in nature, presenting a particular persona speaking to another particular persona in a given situation. In this sense, many of Wright's poems are like vignettes - self-contained dramatic situations with a defined space, a certain dramatis personae, and an associated set of events. It is easier, for example, to make sense of poems like 'The Company of Lovers' (p. 2) or 'The World and the Child' (p. 27) in this way. By taking this kind of approach one is able to talk of certain central 'characters' – including specific central figures which return throughout her oeuvre. Some critics may be tempted to (^1) Source: Koval, Ramona, Ramona Koval interviews Judith Wright age 84; http:/www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/bwriting/stories/s143393.htm

posturing, and lend the poem a personal tone which carries the full import of its message. In effect the medium of the poem - a personal conversation between people of different backgrounds - is in tension with its message which addresses the lack of and difficulties of conversation between people of different backgrounds. The entire poem is dependent on the credibility of its message being created through a personal conversation between two people who know each other. The poem is as much a story of its own making as it is an invitation of its broader 'audience' - the readership 'listening in' to engage in a similar conversation. Another common approach of Wright's besides engaging her audience indirectly via a nominated third party, is to use an iconic figure - either as narrative mask or as a central persona within her text. Often such a figure may re-occur across her oeuvre'. One such figure is ‘Eve’, who appears as speaker in poems such as 'Eve to her Daughters' (p. 134) ( The Other Half , 1966) and 'Eve Scolds' (p. 194) and 'Eve Sings' (p. 195) ( Fourth Quarter , 1976) and as figure in 'The Garden' ( Woman to Man , 1949) and 'Brennan' (p. 221). In each instance ‘Eve’ is the spokesperson for and representative of all women – an archetype, rather than historical figure or mythical reference. Wright frequently draws her central characters in archetypal terms - working in the Jungian sense with a representative cultural substrate of the human psyche. Traces of the Jungian Shadow, Self, Anima and are evident in poems such as: the 'Shadow' figure (p. 153) in the poem of the same name; the holy image in the poem 'A Child's Nightmare' (p. 109); the Moses of 'Bullocky' (p. 9); and the alter-egos of 'Double Image' (p. 114), 'Woman in Orchard' (p. 203), 'Naked Girl and Mirror' (p. 138); the male lover in 'Woman to Man' (p. 20); the figure of 'The Lost Man' (p. 63); and Tom Snow in 'Learning a Word' (p. 208). On occasion Judith Wright makes mention of or addresses her own family members – lover/husband, child/daughter, father and grandfather, uncles, aunts – or speaks of family figures more generally in her poetry. In each instance the full import of her reference derives not only from the individual, biographical character, but from the symbol she builds from and around them, as well as the connotative power of the reference for her readership who understand family relations more generally. Wright's treatment of immediate family figures in her poetry all relate in some way to a particular broader theme she wishes to address: the omnipresent child in potentia in 'Woman to Man' (p. 20); the uncertain nature of the changing relationship between herself and her daughter as in 'For my Daughter' (p. 120); and the future of humanity under nuclear threat as in 'Two Songs for the World's End' (p. 62). The poem 'Wedding Photograph, 1913' (p. 174), addressed indirectly to her parents, for example, is as much a broader meditation on society and life, loss and death, as it is a portrait of her own parents. The more general treatment of distant family members such as 'Bachelor Uncle' (p. 110), and 'Remembering an Aunt' (p. 136) are broader considerations of themes such as limited opportunity and loss of vitality and connectedness due to age which, though they achieve some particularity due to the a more detailed picture remain dispassionate. Poems such as 'Eroded Hills '(p. 49) and 'Old House' (p. 49), and the elegiac 'For a Pastoral Family' (p. 226) are driven as much by a broader concern with history, the environment, social justice or social change as by a particular treatment of Wright's own family. Judith Wright also draws on historical or biblical characters such as Judas in 'Judas in Modern Dress' (p. 115), Moses in 'Bullocky' (p. 9), Jesus in 'Eli Eli' (p. 30), King Saul and David ('The Harp and the King)' (p. 95) and Jacob in 'The Traveller and the Angel' (p. 64). In poems such as these Wright draws in each instance on the commonly understood connotations of these

characters and their situations to develop an extended image. Wright occasionally engages an historical figure in conversation as in the poems 'Reading Thomas Traherne' (p. 125), 'The Man Beneath the Tree' (p. 72 - the Buddha?) and 'Brennan' (p. 221); or reflects on a mythical character such as Lao Tsu as in 'Eight Panel Screen' (p. 147), thereby treating more general life themes such as the search for truth and meaning, and the consolation of poetry and philosophy. Wright also concerns herself with folk history, treating the stories of representative figures in diverse terms. Figures from poems such as 'Metho Drinker' (p. 34) or 'The Bind Man' (p. 38) may tell the story of an entire community. Other figures such as 'Remittance Man' (p. 4) and Mr Ferrit from 'and Mr Ferrit' (p. 84) are readily recognisable stereotypes of a more Australian nature treated in a fresh way. In 'They' (p. 192), 'Victims' (p. 223), 'Learning a Word' (p. 208), 'Smalltown Dance' (p. 219), 'Two Dreamtimes' (p. 166), 'Jacky Jacky' (p. 144) and 'Builders' (p. 196), Wright engages in a form of oral history, constructing alternate Australian myths. These are consonant with her own later stated values, rather than the apparently more iconic portrayals of recognisable types such as 'Bullocky' (p. 9) for which she earlier achieved wide appreciation from mainstream Australians. Besides these iconic anonymous characters, Judith Wright primarily generates anonymous figures or imaginary characters for allegorical purposes, to metaphorise an idea such as time in a poem like 'At Cedar Creek' (p. 204) or represent an imaginary listener, as in 'Woman in Orchard' (p. 203). Characters in poems such as 'Brother and Sisters' (p. 10), 'The Prospector' (p. 79), 'The Diver' (p. 124) and 'The Poet' (p. 124) are types that represent a certain relationship or approach to life. The abstract divine is often present in her earlier poems, either as an echo of a platonic essence as in 'The Moving Image' (p. 14) or as a heightened representation of nature or history. This approach can be seen in poems such as 'Myth' (p. 48), 'Lion' (p. 53), 'The Two Fires' (p. 70) and 'Fire at Murdering Hut' (p. 44). When Wright presupposes an audience as in 'Falls Country' (p. 175), by dedicating it to a person, she in turn creates an image of that person. Where the audience is anonymous, as in 'Dialogue' (p. 164), or 'Poem and Audience' (p. 129) a specific character or group of characters linked to the poem's message nonetheless emerges. Finally, Wright's many self-portraits throughout her oeuvre track her own changing public persona. Wright's latter representations of self are objectively pleasing in aesthetic terms. This is seen in the satirical and oblique association of Wright with the 'national character' (admittedly a contestable interpretation) in 'The Eucalypt and the National Character' (p. 197), or in the more direct self-scrutiny associated with 'Turning Fifty' (p. 141) or the somewhat earlier 'Cleaning Day' (p. 133) or 'Naked Girl and Mirror' (p. 138). Readers gain a full sense of Wright the person from her ironic portraits in her latter work such as 'Tightropes' (p. 186) 'Growing Point' (p. 199), 'Encounter' (p. 200), 'Envy' (p. 207), 'Counting Sevens' (p. 210), 'Moving South' (p. 211), and 'Unpacking Books' (p. 212). In these poems in particular, Wright depends on her triple status as character, image and narrator to transmute herself via the poetic process into something beyond the immediate biographical person. At this point she is integrated as muse and image within her own field of reference, a symbolic matrix of meaning - akin to 'Mother Earth' herself. Finally, one must consider that 'Nature' commonly appears as a character or, more properly, as a cast of characters throughout Judith Wright's poetry. A particular plant, animal, place or force may be personified in acquiring emotion, reason or intention. While one would more