Cirrus@Austlit

' This chapter contextualises Australia’s involvement in major conflicts in light of the European invasion of Australia and the settler-colonial imaginary. It considers how poetry shaped the ANZAC myth extended settler masculinities and portrayed the soldier as both ordinary and extraordinary. The chapter considers divergent trajectories in World War II poetry, including the work of Kenneth Slessor, J. S. Manifold, James McAuley, and Douglas Stewart. It also considers responses to the Vietnam War, such as Bruce Dawe’s “Homecoming.” While the chapter investigates the dismantling of the soldier myth in late twentieth-century poetry, it also notes colonial presumptions persisting in works like Les Murray’s “Visiting Anzac in the Year of Metrification.” It then outlines the emergence of Indigenous counter-narratives to the violence of settler colonialism.'

Source: Abstract

'This student book is a study of the prescribed poems of Kenneth Slessor, along with a variety of other poems, prose fiction, and non-fiction texts. It has been designed to fulfill the requirements of the NSW Stage 6 English Year 12 Common Module: Texts and Human Experiences.

'By engaging in close reading of:

1. ‘Wild Grapes’

2. ‘Gulliver’

3. ‘Out of Time’

4. ‘Vesper-Song of the Reverend Samuel Marsden’

5. ‘William Street’

6. ‘Beach Burial’

'alongside the following texts: Susan B. Anthony’s ‘On Women’s Right to Vote’, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s ‘The Lady of Shalott’, Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Pedestrian’, George Orwell’s ‘The Sporting Spirit’ and Geraldine Brooks’ ‘A Home in Fiction’, students will develop their knowledge of how texts provide insight into the emotions, behaviour, and motivations that form the core of human experiences.'(Publication summary) 

'The Empathy Poems project is designed to raise awareness about the plight of asylum seekers and refugees. It is a response in particular to the situation in Australia, where asylum seekers have been banished offshore and treated in the most inhumane manner, leading to despair, suffering and deprivation. Their treatment is almost unimaginable, coming as it does from a civilised nation.' (Introduction)