Judith Wright: Poetry Lesson Plan

How many meanings can you think of for the term “blood” in the opening line, “South of my days’ circle, part of my blood’s country”? How might a reader interpret the line on a first read, and how might their understanding change after reading the whole poem?

Students might explore the term "blood" as both referring to the speaker’s genealogy and to her visceral connection with the land. They might point to places in the poem where the speaker experiences the land as though it were a body, or even as though it were a part of their own body (for example, “bony slopes wincing under the winter”; “clean, lean, hungry country”; “leaf-silenced,/ willow-choked”). They might...