Judith Wright: Poetry Lesson Plan

Of the multiple hundreds of poems Wright composed, the nine included in this lesson plan span a range of styles, moods, points of view, and decades, from nostalgic poems expressing a certain fondness for her heritage and her native Australia (“Legend,” “South of My Days,” “Request to a Year”) to more haunting, confrontational pieces that explore the darker side of her country’s past and present (“The Old Prison,” “Bora Ring,” “Australia 1970,” “Victims”), to cheeky ditties that capture the essence of wild creatures and the absurdity of man (“Magpies”), to self-reflexive explorations into metaphysics (“Five Senses”). These works are selected to provide as comprehensive an introduction to...