Poet of the Month 076: OODGEROO NOONUCCAL

OODGEROO NOONUCCAL

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.'

 

 

 

1964

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Australian black rights activist, poet, environmentalist and educator Oodgero Noonuccal was born 'Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska' on 3 November 1920 in the Queensland city of Brisbane.  Her father Ted was of Noonuccal descent while her mother Lucy was the product of a union between an Aboriginal woman and a Scottish immigrant.  Their daughter, the second youngest of their seven children, grew up in a settlement near Dunwich on North Stradbroke Island or 'Minjerribah' as it was known to its traditional owners, the Noonuccal people.  She was educated at the Dunwich State School, leaving at the age of fourteen to take up employment as a domestic servant, a job for which she was paid substantially less than a white employee of the same age and sex would have been paid at the time.

 

 

Kathleen Ruska, as she was known until 1943 when she married Bruce Walker, a childhood friend whose people came from the Logan and Albert Rivers region of Queensland, served in World War Two as a signaller and administrator, eventually rising to the rank of Lance Corporal.  She had already begun to write by the end of the war but, after giving birth to a son named Denis and the breakdown of her marriage, had to put her literary ambitions aside to focus her energies on raising him.  This saw her return to domestic work, primarily for the Brisbane doctor Sir Rafael Cilento and his family.  In 1953 the doctor's son became the father of her second son Vivian.

 

 

In the late 1940s Kath Walker joined the Communist Party of Australia, the only party which openly opposed racial discrimination in a country which still treated its indigenous people as third class citizens.  She remained with the party, learning how to plan and organise and write speeches, until its leadership began to interfere with the latter activity, leading her to resign.  She subsequently joined the Brisbane Realist Writers Group where she was encouraged in her literary endeavours by fellow member James Devaney.  It was Devaney who sent a selection of her poetry to Dame Mary Gilmore, the 'grand old lady' of Australian literature.  Walker would eventually go on to win the literary medal named in honour of her fellow poet.

 

 

Walker's first volume of poetry, titled We Are Going, was published in 1964 by the Brisbane-based Jacaranda Press whose reader, the poet Judith Wright, had been its greatest and most outspoken champion.  It was the first volume of poetry ever published by an Aboriginal Australian and was followed in 1966 by a second volume titled The Dawn Is At Hand.  Although her work was dismissed by some critics as 'protest poetry,' this didn't prevent Walker from becoming the second highest selling poet in the country and using her public profile to become a tireless campaigner for Aboriginal land and civil rights.  She also tried to enter politics in 1969 by standing as the federal Labor candidate for the safe Liberal seat of Greenslopes.  She ran again for State Parliament in 1983 as the Democrat candidate, again without success.  Despite these defeats, she remained a powerful presence in both Australia and internationally, visiting Fiji, Malaysia, the United States, Nigeria and China to speak out for her people and against racism in whatever form it took.  She also became an actress, appearing in Shadow Sister (1977) and The Fringe Dwellers (1986), serving as advisor to director Bruce Beresford on the latter production.

 

 

In 1988 she co-wrote the script for The Rainbow Serpent Theatre with her younger son Vivian — a project which saw them renounce their white names and take the traditional names Oodgeroo (paperbark) and Kabul (carpet snake) to replace them.  Her son died of an AIDS-related illness in 1991 but, despite her grief, she continued to campaign for land rights and reconciliation until her own death from cancer on 16 September 1993.

 

 

 

 

Use the link below to read two more poems by indigenous Australian poet OODGEROO NOONUCCAL (1920–1993):

 

http://www.famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/oodgeroo_noonuccal/poems/4601

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You might also enjoy:

 

 

 

 

Poet of the Month 072: JUDITH WRIGHT

 

 

Poet of the Month 063: GABRIELA MISTRAL

 

Poet of the Month 053: TOETI HERATY