We Are Going
They came in to the little town
A semi-naked band subdued and silent
All that remained of their tribe.
They came here to the place of their old bora ground
Where now the many white men hurry about like ants.
Notice of the estate agent reads: ‘Rubbish May Be Tipped Here’.
Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.
‘We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.
We belong here, we are of the old ways.
We are the corroboree and the bora ground,
We are the old ceremonies, the laws of the elders.
We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.
We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering camp fires.
We are the lightening bolt over Gaphembah Hill
Quick and terrible,
And the Thunderer after him, that loud fellow.
We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.
We are the shadow-ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.
We are nature and the past, all the old ways
Gone now and scattered.
The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.
The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this place.
The bora ring is gone.
The corroboree is gone.
And we are going.’
Oodgeroo Noonuccal
Appreciating “We are Going” by Oodgerooo Noonuccal
Read Oodgeroo’s “We are going” (p. 32) and answer these questions on it:
1. Explain why they are “silent and subdued”.
2. How are white men represented? Why?
3. What is a bora ring and explain why it is so central to this poem.
4. Explain their reaction in line 8.
5. Lines 9-17 begin a ‘litany’. What is the effect produced?
6. Comment on the significance of metaphors used in the poem.
7. Comment on the structure and form of this poem.
8. Why does Thunder have a capital letter?
9. Comment on the mood and atmosphere created here.
10. Combine comments on its theme, title and conclusion.
Answers
1. They were silent and subdued because little remained of their tribe and many strangers were busy at work like ants.
2. The white men were represented as ants because they were busy at work and hurrying around.
3. A bora ring is where an initiation is performed and is hardened earth done by foot which is surrounded by raised embankments in a formation of a circle and it is central because the bora ring is not being respected as a sign says, “Rubbish maybe tipped here”.
4. Their reaction meant that to the white men they are strangers and are treated like they don’t belong in Australia but the Aboriginals feel that the white men are the strangers and are in their land.
5. It gives an effect of showing their side of really saying that they are the real natives of Australia and not the white men and that now that they are the past.
6. It compares and shows how the Aboriginals feel.
7. It has six stanzas and has no rhyming pattern.
8. The emphasis the word as thunder is really the loud terrifying sound as a result of lightning.
9. They are in the fresh air of Australia near the Bora Ring and the mood is of sadness and subduedness because of how the Bora Ring is being mistreated.
10. ‘We are going’ are the three words in the title, conclusion and theme and portrays how the life of the Aboriginals would be as the Aboriginals are not welcome to their own homeland therefore they are saying that they will leave their old ways and be cast upon a low unwanted class forever.
Analysis
It About You
© By Corenthia A. Jones
You bring me joy
When I am down
Nothing can explain
What I feel, when I
Am next to you.
My thoughts of loving you
Will always be true.
The feelings I have for you
Make my life seem so new.
Every moment of the day I
Think about spending my life with you.
The thoughts I have I must tell you
There is no other person in
The world I would rather run to,
Than to you.
‘You’ is the very repetitive and is about the love for somone. It portrays the feelings and feels only to go to that person and no one else. She makes her life choice of love to take over her life and reveal her destiny of only going to this man. She says how love gives emotion.
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