Bora Ring (Judith Wright) and We Are Going (Oodgeroo Noonucal)
Poets employ a variety of literary devices to represent marginalised groups in ways that challenge their readers’ perceptions.
Poets employ a variety of literary devices throughout their poems. These literary devices can serve to represent marginalised groups in ways that challenge their reader’ original perceptions. Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Judith Wright are two poets who have applied this strategy. Although Noonuccal and Wright both share a passion for writing, they came from vastly different contexts. Judith Wright was born a white woman in Armidale, New South Wales, in 1915 – the eldest child of Phillip and Ethel Wright. She began writing poetry to please her mother, who died in 1927 when Wright was twelve. Two years later, in 1929, she was enrolled in the New England Girls’ School – where her desire to become a poet increased. Between 1937 and 1938 she travelled Europe, and until 1944 she worked as a secretary-stenographer and clerk until making her poetry debut in 1946 with The Moving Image. Oodgeroo Noonuccal was born as Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, an Aboriginal woman, on Stradbroke Island in 1920 – the second-youngest child of Ted and Lucy Ruska. Noonuccal’s father instilled a fierce sense of justice in her from a young age and they shared his dreaming totem Kabul (the carpet snake). She left school at the age of thirteen, working as a domestic servant until 1939 – when she volunteered for the Australian Women’s Army Service. She reached the rank of corporal and “noticed a big difference in the way she was treated once she enlisted. She experienced social equality”. In 1964, nearly twenty years after Judith Wright’s first publication, Noonuccal published a ‘collection of verse’ titled We Are Going. Despite their difference in backgrounds, Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Judith Wright were both extremely concerned with the representations of Aboriginal people and this shone through in their poetry, where they use the literary devices at their disposal to represent
Poets employ a variety of literary devices throughout their poems. These literary devices can serve to represent marginalised groups in ways that challenge their reader’ original perceptions. Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Judith Wright are two poets who have applied this strategy. Although Noonuccal and Wright both share a passion for writing, they came from vastly different contexts. Judith Wright was born a white woman in Armidale, New South Wales, in 1915 – the eldest child of Phillip and Ethel Wright. She began writing poetry to please her mother, who died in 1927 when Wright was twelve. Two years later, in 1929, she was enrolled in the New England Girls’ School – where her desire to become a poet increased. Between 1937 and 1938 she travelled Europe, and until 1944 she worked as a secretary-stenographer and clerk until making her poetry debut in 1946 with The Moving Image. Oodgeroo Noonuccal was born as Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, an Aboriginal woman, on Stradbroke Island in 1920 – the second-youngest child of Ted and Lucy Ruska. Noonuccal’s father instilled a fierce sense of justice in her from a young age and they shared his dreaming totem Kabul (the carpet snake). She left school at the age of thirteen, working as a domestic servant until 1939 – when she volunteered for the Australian Women’s Army Service. She reached the rank of corporal and “noticed a big difference in the way she was treated once she enlisted. She experienced social equality”. In 1964, nearly twenty years after Judith Wright’s first publication, Noonuccal published a ‘collection of verse’ titled We Are Going. Despite their difference in backgrounds, Oodgeroo Noonuccal and Judith Wright were both extremely concerned with the representations of Aboriginal people and this shone through in their poetry, where they use the literary devices at their disposal to represent