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'Although Australian indigenous poetry is often overtly polemical and politically committed, any reading which analyzes it as mere propaganda is too narrow to do it justice. By presenting the verse of Alf Taylor collected in Singer Songwriter (1992) and Winds (1994) and discussing it in the context of the wider social and cultural milieu of the author, my essay aims to show the thematic richness of indigenous poetic expression. Indigenous poets have, on the one hand, undertaken the responsibility to strive for social and political equality and foster within their communities the very important concept that indigenous peoples can survive only as a community and a nation (McGuiness). On the other hand, they have produced powerful self-revelatory accounts of their own mental and emotional interior, which urges us to see their careers in a perspective much wider than that of social chroniclers and rebels.' (Publication abstract)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
- Singer Songwriter 1992 selected work poetry
- Winds 1994 selected work poetry
- Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence 1996 single work biography
- My Place 1987 single work autobiography
- Benang : From the Heart 1999 single work novel
- That Deadman Dance 2010 single work novel
- Carpentaria 2006 single work novel
- Purple Threads 2010 selected work short story