Wagan Watsons poetry is often read as a representation of race and racial tensions, however, his texts are richer than this. Discuss the way in which you could read the poem/s for other representations. Possibilities include: childhood/matur

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CALLISTA GOH        ENGLISH LITERATURE        1/11/11

          Wagan Watson’s poetry is often read as a representation of race and racial tensions, however, his texts are richer than this. Discuss the way in which you could read the poem/s for other representations. Possibilities include: childhood/maturation, teenagers, Australia, Identity, Nature and Suburbia.

Samuel Wagan Watson’s poetry can be described as extremely complex through both the way in which he expresses his ideas and the representations and symbols he creates from this writing. Through this, particularly in the writing of his anthology, Smoke Encrypted Whispers, Wagan Watson conveys ideas such as that of race and racial tensions, maturation, teenager-hood, Australia and Australian identity, and nature and its importance – however, one idea that standAs out is his strong, negative opinion of the city and its opportunities exhausting country towns and destroying the small societies created there. Two of his poems published in Smoke Encrypted Whispers, ‘Night Racing’ and ‘Cold Storage’ can be read to reflect these ideals and challenge the new-found importance of the city. Therefore, Wagan Watson’s ‘Cold Storage’ can be read in conjunction with his poem ‘Night Racing,’ along with other poems in his anthology, to demonstrate specific ideas about the city’s takeover of the country and more traditional lifestyles, such as the idea that the city and its industries, which act as incentives due to increasing opportunities, is the cause for the destroying country towns. In this, Wagan Watson demonizes the city and the associated ideas of suburbia and material consumerism, whilst highlighting the importance of the land.

Wagan Watson can be said to reflect a bitter tone towards the concept of the city in both ‘Cold Storage and ‘Night Racing,’ blaming it for ‘… a country town [losing] another generation of its young/to the lust of the city’ through the use of symbols such as that of the beast.  ‘Night Racing,’ for example, describes ‘the menacing glow of the city’s tainted body (being) behind us.’ The description of the city as having a ‘menacing glow’ provides a negative connotation in itself, which could be said to display his bitterness towards the civilisation towards the city; examples of this include, ‘… haunted by the silhouettes of urban myth,’ ‘the city’s tainted body,’ ‘the dying heartbeat of this captured landscape,’ the last of which could be interpreted as the city being built on stolen, from both nature and natives (who he may view valued the land more than the settlers do), or ‘captured’ landscape, the heartbeat representing the death of this natural land into industrialization, which will be discussed later. The city’s demonization is also represented in the poem ‘Cold Storage’ through descriptions such as ‘the Beast just keeps taking… takingtaking…’ ‘The Beast’ could be read to symbolise the city and how it takes away the country’s people through incentives such as increasing job opportunities, thus creating the event that ‘… a country town loses another generation of its young/to the lust of the city.’ The ‘taking’ of the beast could also reflect how the influx of young people moving to the city from the country never ends (through the use of repetition and emphasis in italics), thus leaving a country town’s ‘main street void/of the laughter of its children.’ By acknowledging that the city is ‘taking’ as opposed to the people moving by choice, Wagan Watson reveals his true thoughts of the idea of the city and the amount of control the ‘menacing glow of the city’s tainted body’ has over society, as it is now, and how the land is being destroyed by this. Through the negation of the city, Watson therefore emphasizes the importance of keeping rural towns alive because of the value of the land to him and the long-standing communities developed in these country towns.

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‘Cold Storage’ can also be seen to reveal ideas about the city and its popularity over the country, even to the extent that its associated consumerism is ‘taking over’ the importance of the country that used to exist within Australian Culture. For example, ‘the spirits are being sucked away into this gas-pipeline’ can be read to demonstrate ideas of the souls of future generations that are falling into the trap of industrialization, forgetting what Wagan Watson sees that is really important, such as the land and its association with spirits. The word ‘spirits’ can be used to indicate different types ...

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