This Willoughby Girls' Standard English response. We had to make our answer
focus on the concept of changing perspective, not just perspectives.
Peter Skrzynecki's perspective on change is explored and revealed through
his poems, "Post card", "10 Mary Street", Crossing the Red Sea" and "Feliks
Skrzynecki". They all explore change and its impact in different ways, often
focussing on the migrant experience. All these poems explore change and
changing perspectives and they address some common ideas: change is
inevitable, its impact can be either positive or negative; change can
involve a painful reassessment of identity and challenge perspectives.
"Feliks Skrzynecki" is about the relationship between father and son and the
change that happens between generations. The father, Feliks, experienced
change in his lifetime yet has remained constant in his contentment, energy
and endurance. The poem creates an affectionate portrait of the father
through strong visual imagery for example: "hand darkened from cement",
"fingers with cracks", "soft blue eyes". The tone is admiring and
affectionate and the words used to describe Feliks are positive, such as
"gentle". Other adjectives, like "alert", "brisk" and "silent" show the
son's love. He admires the father's stoicism: " When twice/ They dug cancer
out of his foot,/ His comment was: 'but I'm alive".
THE poem explores the way that the perspectives of father and son change.
The father is a Polish migrant but the son is subtly moving away from his
father's culture. There is an element of pain in Feliks' realisation that
the son is "pegging my tents/ Further and further south of Hadrian's wall"
which means the son is moving away from the father's culture as he grows up;
the son's perspective is changing. The father is described metaphorically as
a "dumb prophet" as he watches the son "pegging his tents", indicating his
powerlessness in the face of change, yet his awareness of the consequences
of change.
The poem is a celebration of Feliks Skrzynecki's life, a tribute to him, as
well as a poem about subtle changes in identity.
The poem "Post card" shows a subtle change in the perspective of the
narrator. The poet receives a post card from a friend in Warsaw. This
postcard represents and causes a change in perspective. At first the poet
describes the postcard in an objective, detached tone but hints at the
effect and power it has over him by the way it "haunts" him.
He then goes on to describe Warsaw through his parents' eyes but repeats "I
never knew you, except in the third person", emphasising his sense of
separation from this place. He rhetorically asks to know what more he can
"give" beyond recognition.
In the final stages of the poem, his question is answered by the personified
"voices" of the city. Warsaw has a claim upon him and he knows that we will
go there one day to visit before he dies. This is an acknowledgement that he
must resolve the tensions between the past and present and between his
European heritage and his Australian upbringing. It is truly an
acknowledgement that this place does have a claim upon him. We see the
poet's gradual change in perspective. In the beginning he refers to the city
in the third person, denying it has any special significance for him.
Finally, however, there is an acknowledgement of his heritage, this is shown
by addressing the city directly and through the image of the "voices" of the
city; there is recognition of the power of this place over him. The poem is
about the way the narrator's perspective changes regarding his identity and
his heritage, as he ponders the postcard.
"Migrant Hostel" focuses on the period spent by Skrzynecki and his family in
the Parkes migrant hostel in NSW from 1949 to 1951. It depicts many changes
that are often overwhelming and daunting. The first stanza describes all the
comings and goings. There is an image of uncertainty and anxiety, as no one
knows each other. The change is constant and there is an atmosphere of
transience. The hostel is a place where nothing is permanent and the
migrants lead uncertain lives.
Throughout the poem the narrator compares the migrants to "homing pigeons"
as they adapt to their new situation, and "birds of passage". These images
suggest the constant change in the migrants' lives. We get the impression
that the poem is quite personal from the use of the first person.
In the last stanza Skrznecki talks about the road and there is use of
symbolism. "A barrier at the main gate sealed off the highway." The highway
is used as a symbol for life moving on and the continuation or start of a
new life, but as the migrants are staying at the hostel, they are unable to
move out onto the highway just yet and there is a sense of alienation.
Overall, the poem presents change as a painful process, which is worthwhile
for some but not for others, there were "lives/ That had only begun/ Or were
dying". The migrants are caught between their past identities and the
changes which are required of them. More than one perspective on change is
offered in this poem.
"Crossing the Red Sea" is a recount of different stages of the actual voyage
of a ship bringing migrants to Australia. The poem is about migrants
experiencing change from the suffering of war torn Europe as they sail to a
new country. Part One describes the migrants on deck as the ship leaves
familiar coastlines behind. They "watch a sunset they will never see again".
The migrants begin to share common experiences of suppressed grief and
trauma, "voices left their caves and silence fell from its shackles". These
metaphors are used to describe the way the people are beginning to talk
about their experiences. The image of sunken eyes suggests the ravages of
experience, grief and trauma. As the voyage begins, the migrants begin to
talk.
Part Three describes the migrants as they begin to talk to each other, There
are "patches and shreds" of dialogue. The metaphor is appropriate to
describe the "bits" of conversation. In the middle of this section there is
the use of direct speech, " I remember a field of red poppies" and the use
of quotes throughout the poem personalises the experiences and gives us the
impression of immediacy. We hear the migrants' voices. There are a lot of
images of the colour red which hints are a range of perspectives: blood,
suffering, patriotism, loss, passion, love.
The allusion to "another Lazarus" suggests that the migrants feel the
opportunity to journey to another land is a miracle of new life. There has
been a subtle feeling of anxiety throughout the poem but we can see a gentle
change of perspective, as the migrants are able to talk and hope for a
better future. The biblical allusion in the title also suggests a change in
perspective, referring as it does to Moses taking his people to the promised
land.
In part Four the sea is personified as a healing agent, it dissolves "walled
up griefs", it "accepts denunciations". In part Four the calmness of the
night at sea is like the calmness achieved by people listening to prayer or
the calm sound of pine trees in the breeze or the voice of a person saying
farewell. These are beautiful and poetic images that suggest the soothing,
lulling power of the sea, but also suggest the fragility of that state of
calm.
In Part Five, "daybreak" breaks the spell, it takes away the fragments of
apparitions" and "echoes . . . of trust". The final image of "a blood rimmed
horizon is ambiguous, The horizon and the crossing of the equator remind us
of the long, epic nature of the journey, but "blood-rimmed" hints at
possible grief to come.
This poem is about change. The migrant are leaving behind their homelands
and in doing so begin to shed some of their grief, some of their pain. There
is a very subtle change in perspective as they abandon the "caves of
silence" and achieve some sort of peace and calm. The poet explores the
tension between the past and the future as the people undergo change.
"10 Mary Street" is a poem from the viewpoint of a young boy who takes his
home for granted and as an adult he is able to appreciate how important both
the garden and the house were to his parent and his culture. The house
represents their culture, identity and its survival in a foreign country.
The perspective of change is through the life of an immigrant family. The
first and second stanza show the domestic routines, "to school and to work",
"back at 5 pm". The house provided the family with some sense of continuity,
stability and comfort, "for nineteen years" is repeated twice. We are
provided with pleasant images of the garden and vegetables, "tended roses
and camellias" and "rows of sweet corn". Change is evident in the third
stanza as their beloved home "has been gazetted for industry". The family
was "naturalised more than a decade ago" and now are part of the "soil that
was feeding us". They inherit a new identity. The key is a symbol of this
change, they will carry their own culture within them into their new
culture, they now have a key to a new land and a new identity, as well as
maintaining their old one.
Peter Skrzyencki writes offers a personal perspective on change, in
particular focussing upon the experience of migrants. He shows that change
can be painful and inevitable but his poems also celebrate the change in
perspective that occurs through the migrant experience. His poems are about
changing perspectives of identity.
Willoughby Girls Standard English Class
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