claudiabarkil

Based around Malouf’s ideas in “The Only Speaker of His Tongue” write a short piece in which you show what you understand by the phrase: “Language is that blood“.

When it comes to language, it can be seen as many things. It is a form of communication, which allows people to connect, but it can also disconnect people when those of us do not speak the same language. It can be what defines us, how we think and structure our words are all based on how we learnt to speak, then how we speak amplifies how we see the world.  All of this I already know, I know language is part of our culture, it is what we grow up with. But erase that language and you are erasing a part of yourself.

When growing up with a language that barely exists, is similar to saying that who you are, just barely exists. When people ask me what language I speak, so many give me bewildering eyes, a perplexed look that doesn’t know how to respond to my answer. But, when I hear someone else speak of their tongue, it is almost like a spark was ignited between two people, especially when they find that they can both speak in that same different tongue. Like an unknown family member was finally delivered to them, they are not connected by blood, though their language allows them to act like they do.

However, if someone was to learn that language, it will not be the same. Just as it is for me. No-one else speaks what I speak. But if a stranger from a completely different background from me could, it will still mean nothing to me. They will not appreciate the structure of every word the same as I do, they will see it as something new while I see it as the old. They will consider it an achievement to speak in, while I’ll consider it as my default form of communication. They may speak my language, but that does not mean they are the same as me. They will not connect with me just because they can talk to me, similar to how a dog and a wolf would be, they may communicate the same  way, but their worlds are still too different.

To speak my blood tongue is to see the world through my ancestor’s eyes, to have their knowledge be what guides me, as every word create a map of how they had once seen the world. Their blood is now my blood, and their language is a part of who I am just as my skin, my face, my hair, and my eyes. My language is a part of me just as your language is a part of you, but take that away, get rid of others who could speak it from me, and you are getting rid of me.

Yeah, this was a little bit of me trying to mix in a critical response as a creative text. It is actually about my culture and how I’ve felt towards it compared to seeing other people’s culture and languages. It gives off a sense of omission and a little bit of loneliness like something a part of you is missing though you know there is no way of gaining that part back. I figured that I might as well end my last Oz Lit Blog with something that I can use as part of my own experience as well, and it does work with what I wanted to say for Malouf’s possible idea towards the phase. (Maybe I did that a little too much)

Well, this is definitely something that had helped my better understand my mistakes and constant need to fix my writing skills. I maybe… just maybe…. Write more blogs every week, however they will based on something else.

Well good bye to whoever is reading this, and remember (read the picture at the bottom)

http://www.teachingsuperpower.com/2013_09_01_archive.html

4/Write a letter to Meg in “Down at the Dump” telling her what you think about her relationship with Lummy.

Dear Meg, a character who will definitely read this. 

When it comes to parents who are nothing more but unbearably controlling and in need of a stress pill, it is best to not go behind their backs.

And dating a boy from the dumps when your mother is a control neat freak, will definitely count. When it comes to relationships, you cannot think of it as someone who you only connect with, because in the end, it’s not just you who will be connecting with that person. Your mother, father, and siblings (though you don’t have any) will need to connect and appreciate them in order for a family to grow. Otherwise, resentment will seep into family’s hearts, and the moment the person who they resent will appear in need of help, pity or compassion, those things specifically will be an omission to such families traits. 

It is not best to grow a relationship that was constructed with deception. And yes, your feeling may be true to Lummy, however, is independence or Lummy for that matter, worth the tear of your family’s trust, your mother’s trust. There is a saying, that when it comes to trust, it’s a lot like a mirror. When you break someone’s trust, it’s like breaking a mirror, and like a mirror, trust can be put back together, however, the cracks will always remain and there is no reversing it. 

When it comes to Lummy, I do not consider it as love, but as you trying desperately to become an independent woman, and what better way to prove that than to date a boy your mother would never approve. The only question remained, is trying to be an independent woman worth the cracks that will forever scar and remind you of the trust you were willing to lose? If so, then that boy must really mean something to you. 

Image from https://iso.500px.com/video-7-funky-photo-ideas-to-get-your-creative-juices-flowing/

2/Write a short creative or critical piece that is inspired by any of the works that we have looked at this week (in lectures & tutorials).

Watch how the sun rises,

how he claws out from the land, in such desperation to escape the dark.

But he does not stop running, even when he sits in the middle of clouds

and all the darkness had hidden away, he still runs.

He runs to the far west corner, it took him the whole day to reach.

But even when he reaches the west he does not stop running,

He tries desperately to find east, it took him the whole night to reach.

But even when he reaches the east he does not stop running,

Yes, the sun never stops running,

but that does not mean he does not see the clouds beneath him

or the land beneath the clouds, or the creatures that inhabit the land.

He is running, but do not make the mistake that he is blind,

Do not mistake that he does not see how you start, grow and change.

He sees how your first words that had brought joy and excitement

will eventually spit out venom on those who you wish to hurt.

He sees how children had only seen the world through their eyes,

and how they grow tall only to perceive the world with their minds.

Leaving them the ones who are blind to what is in front of them.

He sees how you once were so simple, so perfect; unhindered

and he sees how you break,

how the you must be chipped, cracked and torn from who you were

Only to be titled adults.

Your compassion, your empathy, your humanity

You were all born with them, and all will be broken and reformed,

and what little scrapes is left over will determine how you will see the people, the land and the creatures you title as either value or soulless burdens.

The sun is always running,

and as time follows him he sees who you become,

what you do and how you hurt, not knowing the wrong,

the darkness within the history you draw light to.

He sees it all around the earth, and he is afraid.

That is why the sun keeps running,

not from the darkness that we title as night,

but from the cruelty and selfishness that comes when we grow.

In Neilson’s poem ‘The Orange Tree,’ i was inspired by the idea of how growing up changes how you think and see things. The girl had seen the world with only her eyes, but the adult had seen it as all the other troubles and values that dwell in his mind. I then wondered nd the reason for that. Was it part of growing up or was it part of losing something about yourself.

This was originally another poem but i wasn’t able to properly get the wordings right without it actually being obivouse on how bad i am with poems. So this is what was left instead.

I had actually done some research and found this beauty.

It’s about how children were able to identify something so horrid just by seeing it, yet adults seem to not allow such things to bother them. I want you to watch this video and picture the cruelty to animals photos being replaced with how the aboriginals were treated. Do you think children would react the same?

We know it is wrong yet we are in a wolrd where we still treat them with such cruelty. How we treat animals was the same way how Australian had treated Aboriginals. We treat them with no compassion or care to how they feel and we do it because we see them as beneath us or something wihtout real souls or emotions. That was why the Aboriginals had sufferred, our compassion was lost as a child and the adults who took over the land had lost theirs. The world needs compassion, so don’t let a child lose theirs.

Q.2. Chose any one of the questions on the Question Sheet from today’s classes and work that into a blog response to today’s authors. For example

2a:  With reference to Mary Gilmore’s “Eve Song”, what is the meaning and force of the repeated phrase “I span and Eve span”?

When considering what life was like for 19th-century Australian women, Mary Gilmore, is one poet worth acknowledging.

Her poem, ‘Eve Song’, gives insight towards discrimination and the hardships woman from the 19th century had to endure as part of society. Examples of those hardships are the over-bearing fact that men (and even some women) had only seen women as nurturers whose only purpose in life was to marry and raise children. To do or act anything other than the ideal wife/mother for 19th-century women, (being married, does not speak to others without her husband’s approval, must want and can bear children, etc) would be considered similar  to a taboo. To me, this kind of ideology sounds like women were some form of intelligent, self-sufficient piece of property that must be kept in check (sounds a lot alike a pet than a partner or a teammate in the family). It was like women were only destined or built for men, in a way, like how Eve was built from and for Adam. They were only created to satisfy men’s’ wants and needs.

Which, is why Gilmore’s ‘Eve Song’ includes the repetition of ”I span and Eve span” as it identifies that women are just like Eve, a creation apart from man but was built to serve man or rather suffer for men. To me,  I feel that Gilmore is trying to explain to her audience that after all the false belief of marriage and upholding the ideologies that are expected for them to follow, women will find themselves unloved. Gilmore might be trying to explain what actual 19th-century women were feeling. They might’ve felt lonely without understanding why since it may be oblivious to some women that the life with their husband can still give them isolation.

But deep in the heart of one of us lay
A root of loss and hidden dismay.

Image from http://www.gettyimages.com.au/galleries/photographers/carlton#