This year in English, we started off studying the poetry of Judith Wright.
I honestly didn't enjoy the unit that much, as I generally struggle with poetry and understanding it, but I also studied this particular poem in Unit 1 Literature two years ago, and I still love it, even though it kind of makes me angry...
The poem talks about these women, (who are obviously restricted by not only their social class, but more importantly their gender and the role that women were expected to play in society at that time), who are just expected to be the perfect little housewife, and as a result, quite literally must fold up their dreams just like a sheet, put it in the cupboard, and close the door.
So here it is.
Smalltown Dance by Judith Wright.
Two women find the square-root of a sheet.
That is an ancient dance:
arms wide: together: again: two forward steps: hands meet
your partner's once and twice.
That white expanse
reduces to a neat
compression fittin gin the smallest space
a sheet can pack in on a cupboard shelf.
High scented walls there were of flapping white
when I was small, myself.
I walked between them, playing Out of Sight.
Simpler than arms, they wrapped and comforted-
clean corridors of hiding, roof with blue-
saying, Your sins too are made Monday-new; and see, ahead
that glimpse of unobstructed waiting green.
Run, run before your're seen.
But women know the scale of possibility,
the limit of opportunity,
the fence,
how little chance
there is of getting out. The sheets that tug
sometimes struggle from the peg,
don't travel far. Might symbolise
something. Knowing where danger lies
you have to keep things orderly.
the household budget will not stretch to more.
And they can demonstrate it in a dance.
First pull those wallowing white dreams down,
spread arms: then close them. Fold
those beckoning roads to some impossible world,
put them away and close the cupboard door.
xx
I honestly didn't enjoy the unit that much, as I generally struggle with poetry and understanding it, but I also studied this particular poem in Unit 1 Literature two years ago, and I still love it, even though it kind of makes me angry...
The poem talks about these women, (who are obviously restricted by not only their social class, but more importantly their gender and the role that women were expected to play in society at that time), who are just expected to be the perfect little housewife, and as a result, quite literally must fold up their dreams just like a sheet, put it in the cupboard, and close the door.
So here it is.
Smalltown Dance by Judith Wright.
Two women find the square-root of a sheet.
That is an ancient dance:
arms wide: together: again: two forward steps: hands meet
your partner's once and twice.
That white expanse
reduces to a neat
compression fittin gin the smallest space
a sheet can pack in on a cupboard shelf.
High scented walls there were of flapping white
when I was small, myself.
I walked between them, playing Out of Sight.
Simpler than arms, they wrapped and comforted-
clean corridors of hiding, roof with blue-
saying, Your sins too are made Monday-new; and see, ahead
that glimpse of unobstructed waiting green.
Run, run before your're seen.
But women know the scale of possibility,
the limit of opportunity,
the fence,
how little chance
there is of getting out. The sheets that tug
sometimes struggle from the peg,
don't travel far. Might symbolise
something. Knowing where danger lies
you have to keep things orderly.
the household budget will not stretch to more.
And they can demonstrate it in a dance.
First pull those wallowing white dreams down,
spread arms: then close them. Fold
those beckoning roads to some impossible world,
put them away and close the cupboard door.
xx
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