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Sienna Hillcoat
Ania Walwicz is a contemporary Australian poet prose writer, and visual artist. Ania Walwicz was born in Swidnica, Poland where she spent her childhood, before migrating to Australia in 1963
The poem “Australia” was written from her point of view. This is the point of view of a female migrant who does not feel welcomed or accepted and is struggling to come to terms with life in Australia.
It is a great depiction and display of the thoughts and feelings of an outsider that feels unwelcome and depicts how they view Australian culture.
Although the poem shines Australian culture in a negative light, it clearly projects the feelings and emotions of not being accepted during this time period and shows what our culture looks like to an outsider.
Ania Walwicz uses an aggressive, irritated and attacking tone of voice in her writing. Although correct grammar is not shown throughout the poem the message is clearly and simply conveyed though the the structuring of short, to the point sentences.
It is clear the Ania Walwicz does not take to the Australian culture and Australian dream.
“You laugh with your big healthy, You try to be friendly but you’re not very friendly”.
She finds the australian people unwelcoming and the land to be too big, empty and lifeless. Throughout the poem she constantly refers to Australia, the Australian people and the Australian culture with You and Your generalizing Australia and speaking directly to it. This gives the poem a more personal and intimate feeling and reads as a one sided conversation rather than just an idea or thought.
It is clear that the author has been bullied by some of the Australian people. “You always ask me where I’m from. You always ask me. You tell me I look strange. Different. You don’t adopt me. You laugh at the way I speak. You think you’re better than me. You don’t like me… You don’t like me and you don’t like women”.
Ania has been discriminated against for looking and sounding different and for being a woman. She does not feel accepted in the community and believes this to be the culture, generalizing all Australians to act racist, selfish and unwelcoming.
By using different techniques and poetic ideas, we as a reader are able to see the negative side of Australia and what our culture looks like to an outsider. The use of repetition and alliteration help to increase and retain the tone of the writer and assist in clarifying her points.
A very prominent technique used by Ania Walwicz is repetition. Repetition is used to pace emphasis on a word or phrase, Ania has done this to show her increasing irritation and constant mocking of Australian culture. It also is mainly used when describing the scenery.
“beach beach beach, road road tree tree”.
Ania makes it clear that she believes that Australia is just too big and too empty. Repetition of these words allows us to recognize that this is all that she can see.
Alliteration of the letter S is also used prominently within the poem to allow her writing to flow and place a dramatic effect upon many of her ideas. “Scorched suntanned, silly shopping town, silent on Sunday, summer stupor”. Each of these examples conveys her emotions of pain, hurt and anger towards the Australian culture, people and land.
It is evident that Ania Walwicz assumes that her own personal values and beliefs do not align with those of the Australian citizens. She constantly compares herself against Australia saying,
“I came from crowded and many. I came from rich. You have nothing to offer. You’re poor and spread thin. You big. So what. I’m small. It’s what’s in.”
It is certain that Ania migrated away from a country that was vibrant with culture, traditions, beliefs and people and that she is uncomfortable stepping onto such a large, open land without an established culture and people that have come from a variety of different place. There is no doubt in her mind that this place is boring, as the community in Australia at the time would have been small and still developing and would me much different to Poland.