Samuel Wagan Watson’s brown water looting is a short poem that reflects on the author’s experiences growing up, specifically how they perceived the loss of their childhood friends through the lens of youthful innocence. Through a focus on the portrayal of Indigenous experience within Australian society, I interpret the poem as bringing attention to the tragic loss of Aboriginal Australian communities as they struggle to conform to a Westernised identity. Wagan Watson’s poem reflects the deep connection that Indigenous culture has with the spiritual, conveyed through the mystification of the land. Wagan Watson also portrays the struggle of growing up as an Indigenous Australian child. This is further conveyed through the loss of innocence as a result of the conflicting values of Indigenous and Western culture.
jetty nights by Samuel Wagan Watson is a brief poem that follows an unnamed persona’s experience taking the jetty. The poem gives a strong visual image of the scene as the persona boards and observes their surrounding while on the jetty. My interpretation of the poem is that, through the context of Wagan Watson’s Indigenous Australian heritage, the conflict between Indigenous and Western perspectives on land. I interpret the jetty as representing a manifestation of Western culture as it exists in conflict with the nature around it. Wagan Watson portrays the effects on European colonisation on Australia, the fishing of its lands and the construction of buoys, as unnaturally conflicting with the ecology of the land. Finally the poem explores the loss of childhood innocence as adolescent Indigenous Australians are forced to come to terms with how their value of the land is suppressed by Western colonialism.
Samuel Wagan Watson stated that. “ Sensory perception is an essential ingredient in literature”. Discuss the extent to which this is true in a studied text
Through the strong visual, auditory, tactile and olfactory imagery present in Samuel Wagan Watson’s jetty nights, the statement “Sensory perception is an essential ingredient in literature” holds true as its presence greatly supports the overarching idea of elements of Western civilisation being in conflict with the natural ecology of Australia.
Through figurative language, readers of texts gain a greater insight into the raw narrative of a text as experienced by its characters. In the introduction of the poem, the vivid setting from the perspective of the persona is conveyed. Wagan Watson relies heavily on how readers interact with the senses to portray how the jetty disrupts the natural surroundings of the jetty. From the perspective of the persona, we understand the environment to be calm, melodious and inviting, as indicated by the auditory imagery of the “song of the swaying pines”. Furthermore, the water is envisioned as gentle and soft, conveyed by the tactile imagery of it “[fondling] the pylons”. The use of this form of imagery, which is dependant on one’s perception of the senses, allows Wagan Watson to explore the intricate perspective held by Indigenous Australians for the ecology of Australia. However, this serene and calm atmosphere conflicts with the jetty, which from the bright lights personified as the “eyes of the jetty” allow the persona to see the “ phosphorescence and ectoplasm / under the death of the floorboards’. Through visual imagery, the reader perceives the lights to be sharp and painful to see, and so Wagan Watson uses sensory perception to reinforce the unnatural reality of the lights and thus Wagan Watson conveys how disconnected Western society is with nature. Furthermore, the subtle and dimmed nature of the “phosphorescence and ectoplasm” makes the reader respond with gloom and dismay as the beauty of the water environment conflicts with the forced artificial lighting of the jetty. Hence, Wagan Watson relies on sensory perception to explore how Western society’s values and attitudes go against the natural state of the land.
