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"Municipal Gum" and Oodgeroo Noonuccal

5/26/2018

4 Comments

 
Picture
In honor of Reconciliation Day, I wanted to write about the poem “Municipal Gum” and its author, indigenous Australian poet Oodgeroo Noonuccal.

Municipal Gum
Gumtree in the city street,
Hard bitumen around your feet,
Rather you should be
In the cool world of leafy forest halls
And wild bird calls.
Here you seem to me
Like that poor cart-horse
Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,
Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,
Whose hung head and listless mien express
Its hopelessness.
Municipal gum, it is dolorous
To see you thus
Set in your black grass of bitumen--
O fellow citizen,
What have they done to us?


—Oodgeroo Noonuccal

The gum tree, owned by the city and trapped in asphalt, belongs instead in nature. The poet compares the tree to a cart-horse that is castrated, confined, and hopeless. The gum tree is a metaphor for indigenous Australians forced off their land. Neither the gum tree nor its “fellow citizen”—the displaced, dispossessed indigenous Australian—is likely to thrive.
 
The author of “Municipal Gum” was born in 1920 on an island in southeast Queensland. Her father belonged to the Noonuccal people. Her family named her Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, and she was known as “Kath.” From age 13, Kath worked as a domestic servant in Brisbane. When she was 21, she enlisted in the Australian Women’s Army Service and soon after married Bruce Walker, a member of the Gugingin people. After a severe ear infection forced her to leave the Army Service, Kath worked at a variety of jobs and became interested in politics, particularly in fighting for the rights of indigenous Australians. She had separated from her husband before their son was born and raised the child alone. Kath began writing poetry in the 1950s.
 
Her first collection of poetry, We Are Going, was published in 1964. It sold well, and other books followed. The poem “Municipal Gum” appeared in My People: A Kath Walker Collection, published in 1970.She continued writing and was known internationally as a protest poet, political activist, and educator. In 1988, she took the name of her people Noonuccal and the tribal name Oodgeroo (which means “paperbark”). Her final collection of poems was published in 1988, and she died on 16 September 1993.
Picture
Her plaque on Sydney's Writers Walk
4 Comments
Diane Williams
6/9/2018 03:49:15 am

While traveling West, I was struck by the Native American struggles. Many immigrants migrated west and killed all the buffalo as “sport”. although I find it hard to understand how killing buffalo from a train is sport. The ultimate goal was to remove the food supply to Native Americans. How very sad.....the long term effect to nature and an entire way of life.

Reply
Rose
6/9/2018 05:31:50 pm

Yes, there are a lot of parallels with what happened to the Native Americans. The First Fleet that came in 1788 to Australia also brought a lot of illnesses with them, similar to what happened when the Native Americans first came into contact with the European colonists. Thanks as always for your thoughtful comments!

Reply
Lillian
7/7/2018 07:44:30 am

A sort of sad tale but interesting.

Reply
Rose
7/7/2018 07:23:15 pm

Yes, the poem is sad and has a hopeless tone. She had such an interesting life and career. It can’t have been easy being a single mom in the 1950s. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment, Ms Lillian.

Reply



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