“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned”.
We’ve all heard about the disgusting and horrendous shooting in Christchurch. My question is how can one murder 50 innocents and continue to live? Where is the humanity in that? The constant worries of safety surpass me and remind me of how important it is to have a home…The one place where safety is not on anyone’s mind.
The New Zealand Prime Minister, Jacinda Arden, commented on this massacre: “We are one, they are us”. Despite the diverse culture and ethnicity, New Zealand is also the home of the Muslims. It is clear in her speech that the physical features of people aren’t necessarily where their home is. I can relate to this as my home is the Solomon Islands, but I’m not from there. Moving from one place to another reminds you of where you're truly from. ‘Homecoming’ suggests that home shapes one’s identity, while ‘South of My Days’ demonstrates despite home being dangerous and hostile, at the end of the day, it is still your home. It is evident that different perspectives of home and place will be explored.
Forty-nine people were at their place of worship. They felt safe, happy and in a sanctuary. They then became victims of a massacre. Victims of a place where they considered ‘home’. What is your place in this country? Where has the sense of belonging gone? Where do you go now? Home? Where is your home?
‘Homecoming’ by Bruce Dawe is a dramatic poem that portrays the futility of war in a provoking tone. The poem is a tribute to the return of the young Australian soldiers who fought and died in the Vietnam War. Although the theme of anti-war and loss is dominant in the poem, the importance of home and place is subtlety incorporated as the Australian soldiers need a home to return to, whether they’re dead or alive.
Bruce Dawe is one of the biggest selling and most highly regarded Australian poets. He had written ‘Homecoming’ in 1968, when the general public was against war. It is an anti-war poem that protests against Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. The poem has an ironic title ‘homecoming’, which is usually associated with happiness; however, Dawe had ensured that there is no happiness for the Australian soldiers. The poem recounts the tragedies of war and the journey of the bodies being brought home. Bruce relates to the importance of home and place as he was raised in a household where his father was a farm laborer and was often unemployed and absent from home. His perspective of a home is not a physical building, a place or land; it’s the sense of belonging and the company of others that creates the feeling of home.
The poem begins with “All day, day after day, they’re bringing them home”. The repetition of ‘home’ emphasizes the emotional ties of soldiers to their homeland, where they belong. It also highlights the anonymity of public servants of war, performing the gruesome but mandatory procedure. “The steaming chow mein” indicates the foreignness, and to die where home is not is unfortunate as there is no sense of belonging. The fallen soldiers were described as “curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-coms”. Their bodies were unidentifiable, and they were being tagged, a tactic to identify who they were. “They are bringing them home”. But where is home for an unidentifiable person? The only thing they knew about ‘them’ was that their home is Australia. Despite everything, home is the only place for one to be identified, even though names are unknown. Home shapes one’s identity.
Judith Wright’s ‘South of My Days’ is about her personal relationship with the land and how it represents her family home. It captures the distinctive voice of Australia, its land and people. She revives her childhood and adolescence in the poem, replicating the impact of both beauty and the roughness of her land that influenced her. She illustrates what her home once was through old Dan’s story and the language use such as troopers and sulky.
Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She had published ‘South of My Days’ in 1971. Even though Judith was born in New South Wales, Brisbane is her home as it is ‘part of [her] blood’s country’. Her profound love for the Australian landscape led her to advocate for the Aboriginal land rights movement.
She states how home and place are blood deep and are always going to be a part of us. Personification utilized in “bony slopes under the winter” expresses the repulsion towards the winter as the land antipathies winter regardless of it being harsh and ‘bony’. “Low trees blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-clean, lean, hungry country. The creek’s leaf silenced, willow-choked”. Through the use of accumulation and personification, it is suggested how fragile and delicate the landscape is during the extremes of winter and the drought. The simile, “mud round them hardened like iron”, grasps the concept of how robust the landscape can be and the difficulty of battling against it. Despite all the flaws of her land, beauty is revealed through the alliteration, “rises that tableland, high delicate outline”. Home has an effect on us, despite how hostile it is, our love for it would not be affected. Wright cannot escape her home, even though it is harsh, she loves it.
But in link with ‘Homecoming’, both poems provide different perspectives of the importance of home. While ‘Homecoming’ expresses home being a physical place for the soldiers to return to, ‘South of My Days’ suggests otherwise. It depicts Wright’s connection with home and how it will forever be deep within us like blood. They both experience sorrow as the Australian soldiers have died in the war, and how old Dan could possibly be dying as “no one is listening” to his stories as people have abandoned the land. The yellow boy was just like the Australian soldiers, he had passed in a foreign country and in an unfortunate situation.
Just like the Muslims in New Zealand, everyone needs a home, a place where the sense of belonging is felt. The connection to home is so powerful that, despite all the tragedies and faults like the massacre, there is also beauty. This is delusional, how can one love a place that is damaged? This verifies how crucial it is to have a home. Home can be anything. Starting from friends, family, where you grew up, where you’re from and where you feel safe. This is just a reminder of how important home is to everyone, and without it, it’ll be “All day, day after day”.