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We Are Going
For Grannie Coolwell

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.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

About Oodgeroo Noonuccal (Kath Walker)

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Class:

Oodgeroo
Noonuccal
(formerly
known as
Kath
Walker) was
the first
indigenous
female poet
to have her
works
published in
1964 to
great success. She was born in 1920 and grew up as a member of
the Nonnuccal tribe on North Stradbroke Island Minjerribah. Her first
book of poem, We Are Going, was the first book of poems published
by an Aboriginal writer.
Oodgeroo means paperbark. She belonged to the Noonuccal group
who lived on the island of Minjerribah. She was the second youngest
child of the family and had three brothers and three sisters.
Oodgeroo loved the sea and the seashore, and as young girl spent
much of her time around the shores and out on the mudflats of the
bay. Her favourite activities as a child were crabbing, fishing and
oyster hunting.
By the age of the thirteen Oodgeroo had reluctantly left school and
had begun work as a domestic servant for a wealthy whit family.
She was disappointed that because she was black she could not do
further study or find other work. However, with the outbreak of
World War II in 1939, the opportunity opened up for her to volunteer
for army work. She was trained in telecommunications and for the
first time in her life earned a reasonable wage-sixty cents a day.
Oodgeroo changed her name from Kath Walker to her Aboriginal
name to acknowledge her Aboriginality in 1988- the year celebrated
by white Australians as the Bicentennial.

Oodgeroo Noonuccal is famous for her

poetry, her paintings and for a variety of
honours that were accorded to her
throughout her long life of service and
devotion to her people and her land.
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Analysing the poem

1. Subject matter- what is the poem
about?

2. Theme/message/ideas

3. Mood- feeling in the poem

Tone-the attitude of the author

Emotions-how it makes you feel

Atmosphere-relates to the setting in the poem; the feeling

4. Form (e.g. Haiku, sonnet, ballad, free verse)

Structure-number of stanzas; how it is set out

5. Diction-word choice (e.g. Harsh? Soft? Descriptive? Vivid?)

6. Figurative techniques-making comparison-allows you to

image/visualise
Simile?

 Metaphor?

Hyperbole?

Personification?

7. Sounds- allows you to hear what is being observed

Onomatopoeia?

Alliteration?

Assonance?

Rhyme?

8. Other techniques
Repetition?

Rhetorical questions?

9. Overall impact-Did she achieve her aim?

Bora ground

Bora ring

Corroboree