This week we have a comprehensive array of student work from the English department. In English, two classes started the year with the Negotiated Study module. The imaginative work requirement of this module allows students to explore the ideas in the texts studied in a range of creative ways, including poetry and art. In this article, we hear from Chloe and Matilda and who explore their understandings of the concepts of justice and power in postcolonial Australia.

Kate Askey-Doran, AST of English

Poetry Meets Art with Chloe

Chloe completed an amazing oil portrait of Truganini as her imaginative response to the three media texts used for the English 3 Negotiated Study to explore questions of justice and power in Australia through a postcolonial lens. She writes:

As art is subjective, I had to rely solely on visual aspects in the form of colours, text and portraits to convey the theme of indigenous justice and power. I have utilised the colours from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander flags to convey and give the painting an aspect that is easily identifiable, therefore giving the piece a feeling of familiarity. These colours include neutral tones accompanied by red, yellow, blue and green with both tones of black and white. Text in this painting is in the form of articles that speak about “The last Tasmanian Aboriginal” and parts of the curriculum that are out of date and wrong. The main aspect of this painting is a close-up portrait of Truganini, as she is a clear example of not just the lack of education about Tasmanian Aboriginal history and culture, but also highlights the need for reconciliation. All Truganini wanted after her death was to not be used for scientific purposes and for her remains to be back with the land on which she lived. Not only were her wishes denied for many years, but her skeleton was put on display until 1951, 76 years after her death. She was only recently put to rest over a century after her death. This shows how we all need reconciliation desperately as, at its heart is the strengthening of relationships that can only be achieved through continuous action in both the symbolic and practical form. This is what this painting hopes to make the audience feel and help influence them to change their perspectives.

The Map Upon the Wall with Matilda

Matilda completed this thought-provoking poem as her imaginative response to the three media texts used for the English 3 Negotiated Study to explore questions of justice and power in Australia through a postcolonial lens. She writes:

My poem is designed to highlight the many ways that we can deal with the bitter history between the Indigenous Australians and Western Colonisers of Australia. The dark history we share can be treated in diverse ways. Some people turn away from the horror of the past, denying what happened, and feigning ignorance. Others attempt to scrub the history away, erase it, and leave its remnants in the dark. My poem shows the way I believe our history should be dealt with, by acknowledging the wrongs committed, remembering them, then allowing our past mistakes and successes to guide us to a peaceful future.       

The Map Upon the Wall

The black past oozes down the wall

Leaving a crimson trail,

Failures of unspoken history,

Innocents murdered,

Mapped out for all to see.

Punitive war fought for centuries,

Shallow as skin,

Hollow as the grave,

A tracery of bloody genocide,

Maroon tendrils seeping into our era.

Do we clean that wall?

Scrub it with a modern lather?

Do we fixate elsewhere?

Unable to contemplate the horrors,

Phantoms haunting our past.

We must stand firm,

Stare at that wall steadfastly,

Trace the map of horror and bloodshed,

Speak our truths and listen to theirs,

Engrave each line in our minds,

Paint them with tears on our hearts,

Take them,

Remember them,

Grieve them.

Mistakes and victories

Forming a map of the path to peace.

Do we place it in front of us?

Allow it to guide us to a better place?

Reject it?

Place it behind?

Stumble into the valleys that entrapped our ancestors?

At least this time we will learn...

The poison within;

Division is weakness.

A Deeper Discussion of The Map Upon the Wall by Matilda

My poem is designed to highlight the many ways that we can deal with the bitter history between the Indigenous Australians and Western Colonisers of Australia. The dark history we share can be treated in diverse ways. Some people turn away from the horror of the past, denying what happened, and feigning ignorance. Others attempt to scrub the history away, erase it, and leave its remnants in the dark. My poem shows the way I believe our history should be dealt with, by acknowledging the wrongs committed, remembering them, then allowing our past mistakes and successes to guide us to a peaceful future.       

My deepened understanding of postcolonial Australia certainly impacted the way I authored my poem, and the amount of description I put into the atrocities of our history with the Indigenous Australians. My newfound understanding of the hardships still felt by the Indigenous people of Australia helped me to develop my stance on modern day dealings with the First Nations people, and how we must act if we hope to be truly reconciled as a society. I strongly believe that if we do not achieve reconciliation, our society will rot from the inside, hence my final lines “The poison within/ Division is weakness.” Racial division is a hardship felt in most countries, but it is a weakness; a Faultline in our society. Deepening my understanding of the Indigenous struggles in a colonised society helped me to understand the fragility of this situation and why it has continued for so long, as the wrongs committed are massive, and difficult to overcome.       

I utilised imagery and the vividness of the human imagination to engage readers and allow their minds to be free to explore the vastness of the topic being dealt with. Descriptive words such as ‘bloody,’ ‘maroon tendrils,’ and ‘phantoms’ engage what the reader associates with those words or phrases. Colours of blood, maroon, crimson, and black, when coupled with words like ‘dark’ and ‘phantoms’ paint an eerie picture of the reality being conveyed. I also make use of metaphors to fully engage the reader’s imagination, such as “The black past oozes down the wall," and “Scrub it with a modern lather?” The image of a black oozing substance sliding down a wall is one that makes your skin crawl, especially when more of the poem is read and it is understood that the black substance is blood leaving crimson trails and forming a map of history. By engaging a sense of motion in this metaphor it puts a reader on edge, making them anticipate how terrible the past must be. “Scrub it with a modern lather?” Is a more difficult metaphor to decipher, as I wish for it to hint at the fragility of many modern attempts to reconcile, as they tend to give too little, too much, or try to erase the past which is like bloodstains: it will never go away.

Rhetorical questions hopefully cause the reader to stop and think about their own opinions, their attitudes, or even any hidden prejudices they may hold. “Do we place it in front of us? / Allow it to guide us to a better place? / Reject it? / Place it behind? / Stumble into the valleys that entrapped our ancestors?” This series of lines escalates as it is read, the sheer enormity of the power we each hold just by how we treat the Map on the Wall is emphasized by the urgency in the voice of the poem. I hope the questions ring in the reader’s mind; what will they do with the map? How will they treat people now? Hopefully, it will lead the reader to question their attitudes toward other peoples.                               

I use contrast to lead the reader’s imaginations to the enormity of a difference we can make in this issue. The phrases “bloody genocide,” and “the path to peace” are each featured in my poem. Such polar opposites, one being mindless slaughter and the other almost Heaven, yet it is only we humans that are the difference between the continuation of a genocide and walking a path of peace. The power that the reader holds within their beliefs and attitudes towards others is immense, and I show this through my use of contrast.

The ultimate effect of my poem is to make people stop and consider where Australian society is heading next. Which choice will we be making? Is our next step going to be toward peace, or the continuation of war? This poem attempts to make readers think about the power their attitudes toward other people hold, and how at some point we must start learning from our mistakes and cease to allow our society to be divided by race.