Municipal GumOodgeroo’s poetry was part of a literary legacy that went with her political life. She was able to express her ideas to the world through her protest poetry and be able to advocate for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders rights. Oodgeroo wanted to convey pride in her Aboriginality to the biggest possible audience, and to popularise equality and Aboriginal rights through her writing. She uses her own personal experiences to help contribute to her poetry and made sure that whoever read her writing would understand it and want to help change occur in Australia for Aborigines.
|
ShameGilbert’s poetry is often claimed to be angry in tone – and he claims this anger is from the discrimination he encountered from whites who saw him as aboriginal, from aborigines early on because he was mostly white (and technically only one quarter aboriginal) being born of mixed parentage, and from all because he was a convicted murderer despite what he achieved in his later life.
Gilbert’s mixed parentage could also explain his effective understanding of the white’s critical opinion toward aborigines as shown in the poem, Shame. |