VCE English 2023

Unit 1 AoS 1 – Reading and Exploring Texts

Peter Skrzynecki
Old/New World: New and Selected Poems

Poems for Close Analysis

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 Table of Contents:

‘Immigrants at Central Station, 1951’ (p. 34) p. 3

‘A Drive in the Country’ (p. 72) p. 4-5
‘Arrival from Austria: Italy, 1949’ (p. 95) p. 6
‘Weeding: For Kate’ (p. 157) p. 7
‘Tadpoles’ (p. 257) p. 8-9
‘Only Child’ (p. 261) p. 10-11
‘Night Swim’ (p. 130) p. 12-13
‘Feliks Skrzynecki’ (p. 36) p. 14-15
‘The Polish Immigrant’ (p. 128) p. 16-17
‘The Streets of Regents Park’ (p. 282) p. 18-19
‘Translated into Polish’ (p. 292) p. 20-21
‘To Kenneth Slessor’ (p. 321) p. 22-24
‘Time’s Revenge’ (p. 195) p. 25
Poems by Theme p. 26-27
Word Bank p. 28-29
Strong Poetry Essay Responses p. 30-35
Poetic Techniques p. 36
Writing Lines p. 37-40

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 Immigrants at Central Station, 1951 (p. 34)

It was sad to hear

The train’s whistle this morning
At the railway station.
All night it had rained.
The air was crowded
With a dampness that slowly
Sank into our thoughts –
But we ate it all:
The silence, the cold, the benevolence
Of empty streets.

Time waited anxiously with us

Behind upturned collars
And space hemmed us
Against each other
Like cattle bought for slaughter.

Families stood
With blankets and packed cases –
Keeping children by their sides,
Watching pigeons
That watched them.

But it was sad to hear

The train’s whistle so suddenly –
To the right of our shoulders
Like a word of command.
The signal at the platform’s end
Turned red and dropped
Like a guillotine –
Cutting us off from the space of eyesight

While time ran ahead

Along glistening tracks of steel.

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 A Drive in the Country (p. 72)

At Blue Hole
I stood by the water’s edge
and watched how swallows swam
through the air –
wild ducks moving away
in the weeds
to their nests in the hollows
of blackberries and reeds.

I stood on a rock
by the roots of a willow –
saw how leaves
bent their ears to the ground.
Gum trees shed
their bark to the wind
and she-oaks dipped their hands
in the shallows.

A chain and rope

hung down from a tree –
over the water for children to swing from.
And I thought of a gallows
to which dead men return
at noon or in darkness
to wait for a crowd.

4
 And still I kept looking
back to the road –
away from Blue Hole
and the miles yet to go:
thinking of the room
where an alarm clock was set
and tomorrow already there.

But only the soft call

of swallows and wild ducks
replied to my thoughts
through the streamers
of blue light.

I spoke to myself
like a man who is dying
and walks away from a road
that runs only one way.

5
 Arrival from Austria: Italy, 1949 (p. 95)

All morning we walked

along a street of rain,
under leafless trees and singing wires –
driven forward by a wind
at our backs,
relentlessly, like a voice of conscience.

Walls of houses
watched our progress –
spoke nothing, and continued to stare,
while packs of clouds
rolled overhead and thunder
rumbled in the distance.

A storm passed
the previous week
on a station by a forest of pines –
where aeroplanes lay broken
like giant toys
carved from fragile wood.

But the wind dispersed it all –

pine trees, windows,
rail tracks, the landscape
of a brooding storm;
brought us within sight
of a black ship
moored to a dock in the distance –
as rain continued
to spatter our faces and hands
in drops
that ran off
like hieroglyphics.

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7
 Weeding:
Tadpoles
For Kate
(p. 257)
(p. 157)

As children we’d catch them

in Duck Creek – Johnny, Roger and myself –
We cannot tell
in the slimy green water
how many years it took
of clayish recesses
for weeds to grow so tall and thick –
where bulrushes and watercress grew.
paspalum, clover, Patterson’s curse:
tiers of morning glory
We’d cram our jars and milk bottles
slowly strangling trees and ferns.
with the black oval-shapes
whose tails wriggled nonstop
Still, it was parcel
and heads butted against glass –
and part of our purchase
whose small mouths popped silently
on a hill overlooking rows of green crests –
as they tried to escape.
the old deceased estate
standing proudly like a token,
Those with legs already formed
overgrown with dust
would try to scale
and colonies of weeds.
the impossible smooth heights –
while their bellies of circular tubes and veins
Sweat stains our limbs
heaved like a bellows
in the sunset’s light. A shiver ripples
containing a network
along the downhill breeze.
of electrical wires
We tug at knotted roots
like a pair of servants
There was no real reason
working on hands and knees.
for us to catch them –
to store them under back steps
The child inside you
or leave them out in the sun.
has not yet started to move –
By next day, most would be dead –
though you laugh
the water smelling so bad
and strain at the toil.
we’d tip it on to an ants’ nest
We turn up roots, white as flesh,
and watch the ants eat the remains.
and our fingers touch
We knew nothing about
in the warm, black soil.
breaking life-cycles or offending Mother Nature.
We just called it ‘having fun’.

8
 Fifty years later,
trying to fall asleep, sometimes
I remember how a gang of small boys
caught tadpoles and lived out
the cruel parts of their lives –
how they ran afterwards through long grass
as though escaping from the scene of a crime.

Tadpoles swim around in the darkness outside,

swarm against the window-panes –
heads butting, tails
lashing the glass –
never taking their eyes off me,
their mouths popping
just like they did five decades ago.
Not one of them ever suffocates.
The oxygen in the water never gets used up.

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 Only Child (p. 261)

For as long as he can remember

he was always good with words –
the little boy who stared through the window
and listened to how the wind made the grass sing.
He would wait alone in a room
for his mother to come home from work –
from a place ‘out there’, whatever
that meant, while the clock’s hands moved
so very very slowly until the door opened
and he stood there, smiling, arms held out to him.

It was during those times of being alone

that he managed to put sounds together –
somehow welded a feeling in his blood
with the sounds it would create in his head.
Cold when he shivered and had no coat.
Warm when he snuggled under the eiderdown.
Go away when he was angry with someone.
Please stay when he was frightened
or being left alone in the room.

His childhood had become a series

of arrivals and departures, packed suitcases
left waiting at the front door
for a bus or truck to transport him
and his mother to the next Displaced Persons’ camp.
‘One day it will change,’ his mother told him.
‘One day we will settle down in a house of our own –
Have a garden, grow vegetables and flowers.
You can have your own puppy. One day
You will understand what our lives were about.’

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 Now his mother is dead and his adopting father.
His own life has passed the fifty-year mark.
Often he prefers the company of music and books
to the presence of other human beings.
He trusts very few people apart from his own family
and could spend all day watching the flights of birds
if time and circumstances permitted the luxury.

Words come easily, almost indifferently,

but he says nothing and sinks into his own well of silence –
in whose depths he hears the same kind of music
he heard when left alone as a child
and the wind scattered its treasure of vowels and consonants
for him to discover in the long grass.

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 Night Swim (p. 130)

Stroke upon stroke

he tires himself out from an impulse
that haunts his sinews and bones –
the water’s obstinacy yielding
to hands that cleave an escape
into a green darkness that filters in
from the walled-off sea.

Within the perimeters of cliff-side lights,

walkways, jowls of sandstone
profiled on Bilgola’s sky –
he cordons himself off
from a day that blurs his eyes
and stings with a salt
no sea dissolves.

A burst of fragmented voices overtakes him,

echoes of distances he crossed in thirty-three years:
birthplace, parents, his two
young children –
a marriage shattering in dissolution
like surf on a virginal
backbone of sand:
landscapes of inheritance
he tears his palms on
as though trying
to peer over a serrated horizon –
admissions of success and failure
nakedly coalescing:
momentarily distilled
like a springtime essence
into a single drop of the sea.

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 Swallow it, he tells himself –
stomach it and learn to swim as never before.
Curse the moon, tides
and people (elements of Change
you cannot flee). Accept the darkness,
abyss between planets –
dome of eternity whose only light has been the stars.

Behind him the water shimmers

like spilled oil
and he heaves himself
on to the green wall.

Discoveries? Of what –
in two lengths of chained-off time?
Hardly worth the hour’s drive
from suburbs where he lived
and never once questioned day-to-day purposes,
effects of years on heart and mind.

He laughs at a small mottled crab scuttling sideways

at his feet
(only to fall back into the sea) –
as though he himself
was something
it actually had to fear.

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 Feliks Skrzynecki (p. 36)

My gentle father
kept pace only with the Joneses
of his own mind’s making –
loved his garden like an only child,
spent years walking its perimeter
from sunrise to sleep.
Alert, brisk and silent,
he swept its paths
ten times around the world.

Hands darkened
from cement, fingers with cracks
like the sods he broke,
I often wondered how he existed
on five or six hours’ sleep each night –
why his arms didn’t fall off
from the soil he turned
and tobacco he rolled.

His Polish friends

always shook hands too violently,
I thought . . . Feliks Skrzynecki,
that formal address
I never got used to.
Talking, the reminisced
about farms where paddocks flowered
with corn and wheat,
horses they bred, pigs
they were skilled in slaughtering.
Five years of forced labour in Germany
did not dull the softness of his blue eyes.

14
 I never once heard
him complain of work, the weather
or pain. When twice
they dug cancer out of his foot,
his comment was: ‘but I’m alive’.

Growing older, I
remember words he taught me,
remnants of a language
I inherited unknowingly –
the curse that damned
a crew-cut, grey-haired
department clerk
who asked me in dancing-bear grunts:
‘Did your father ever attempt to learn English?’

On the back steps of his house,

bordered by golden cypress,
lawns – geraniums younger
than both parents,
my father sits out the evening
with his dog, smoking,
watching stars and street lights come on,
happy as I have never been.

At thirteen,
stumbling over tenses in Caesar’s Gallic War,
I forgot my first Polish word.
He repeated it so I never forgot.
After that, like a dumb prophet,
watched me pegging my tents
further and further south of Hadrian’s Wall.

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 The Polish Immigrant (p. 128)

He has grown tired

of the clichéd
pronunciation of his name –
countering
the inadvertent ‘How d’yer . . . ?’
that humour
or rudeness asks,

a few vowels
and tooth-grinding consonants
that must be phonetically rehearsed
alone or at night,

to forestall jibes,
embarrassments, false curiosity –
the wasted time
that a Handbook-and-Timetable
devotee provokes.

Yes, he would argue,

there must be places
in history
where land or heritage
asks no exile
of the children it nourishes
and helps to breed,

where a name’s
not laughed at, reviled
or twisted
like some gross truth
or as yet unnamed, imported
European disease.

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 So, he asks,
Tell me of Strzlecki,
count-turned-explorer –
beside whose name
a creek flows
through the deserts
of South Australia?

Or why a mountain, peaked

with snow,
should resemble a tomb
and be named
Kosciusko?

Their eyes narrow,

nostrils quaver –
the seconds
between them toll.

Deeply breathing
their mouths open
darkly
and groper-slow.

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 The Streets of Regents Park (p. 282)

The streets of Regents Park

run in the same direction
that they did when I was a child –
when I played in them
and the suburb was a bushland
of wattles and paperbarks.

Amy Street still joins

the suburb, running from east to west.
On the Sefton side, where I lived,
Clapham Road joins Park
at the top of the pipeline bridge
and continues to Chester Hill.

Those were streets of dust and gravel

from where I got my bearings
no matter where I had to go –
school, play, swimming at Banky Baths,
picture shows at Lidcombe:
leading away but also bringing me home.

I belonged to a ‘gang’ of children

who played alongside Duck Creek
and its paddocks of paspalum –
in those long golden summer afternoons
that were always never-ending.
We built bonfires that burnt past midnight.

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 Houses, shops, factories,
an influx of new immigrants
now lays claim to the streets –
witnesses to the lives of my parents
and the generations before them
who made the suburb what it is today.

The streets of Regents Park

still run through my blood
even though I don’t live there anymore –
leaving was like walking into another room
and discovering afterwards,
there was no lock on the door.

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 Translated into Polish (p. 292)

I wonder what my parents

would say knowing
my poems and short stories
are being translated
and published in Poland –
back to the language
I grew up with
before I learned to speak
and write in English.

Though I’ve lived

in Australia for fifty-five years
I sometimes still feel
out of place – having
become the traveller
who doesn’t want to return
after he makes a trip to Europe.

Looking at the translated works

it’s impossible
not to see the irony –
knowing that Polish
is the language I’m quickly forgetting
since both parents have died,
finding myself
more and more of a stranger
to Polish nouns and verbs
every time I have
to use them correctly.

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 One part of me says
it’s terrific
about the translated works.
Another part asks,
‘Does it really matter?’
Goes on to ask more questions
about identity and fate
and why my life
ended up in Australia.

I think of my birth
at the end of World War II
and snippets of history from it
enter my head
as if they had a hidden agenda:
Dresden, Warsaw, Stalingrad,
the fall of Berlin –
the railway tracks leading
to a death camp in Poland
over whose gates
the sign read, Arbeit Macht Frei.

‘Now there’s an irony,’

the first voice says, ‘Thank
your lucky stars
your parents took you on a railway journey
that lead to a ship
that sailed to Australia.
Listen to the stories
and poems translated into Polish.
You will hear
the voices of your parents.’

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 To Kenneth Slessor (p. 321)

After writing all those poems

about Sydney Harbour and the sea, exotic places
and travellers with foreign names,
your mortal remains ended up
in Rookwood Cemetery, under a pink rosebush,
beside Noela, your first wife,
as you requested in your will –
in the Sunken Garden, surrounded
by sandstone memorial walls.

The only water’s in the central pond

where golden carp lie indolently
under broad waterlily pads.
Blackbirds and willy-wagtails
contend for airspace with their songs
in pine trees and oleanders.
Time, too, seems caught between
the desire to escape or come in from the heat –
not that there’s much room to move
in that shaded, narrow corner,
in what’s left of the late afternoon summer hours
as cortege arrives at the crematorium
and workmen are cementing another row
of nice walls, all within earshot of each other.

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 I never took your advice at a party
and anglicised my name
as your family did theirs
when Schloesser became Slessor
and so much easier to pronouns and spell.
What should I have changed Skrzynecki to –
Smith? Sullivan? Short? Sheehan?
I always liked the letter S.
Would it have made ‘things easier’
as you said but never explained.
Somebody else came up to speak to you
and the conversation was never finished.

The air’s heavy with the scent

of spring’s last flowers and summer’s
first intoxicating crops –
roses, gardenias, port-wine magnolias
arranged around small pebbled pathways
that are currently undergoing ‘reconstruction’.
A jacaranda leans over the wall
and drops its blue-bell flowers
among pine bark, leaves and dry petals.

Seats and terracotta figurines have been added

since your ashes were interred.
One, of an Italian peasant girl with an empty basket,
nearest to you – head turned away,
with a fierce, indignant look – might have
pleased you the most, I think.

Over the Eastern Road is the Islamic Burial Ground,

closer by is the Chinese Section.
One would think that the world
today has chosen to bury its dead
behind the steel gates of Rookwood Cemetery.
I wonder if you had any idea
that the Sydney you loved so much
was going to become a global village?

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 Time’s up and I have to go
but I know it won’t be long before I’m back,
that I’ll drive past like I’ve done
so many times in the last thirty years –
only now my thoughts will be with you
behind the sandstone wall and garden of roses.
My parents are buried in the Polish Section
and one day I’ll be there too.
It’s not far away, less than ten minutes
at a leisurely pace, out of the heat,
under the eucalyptus and wattle trees –
quite close, really. No water to cross,
no ferries, yachts, trams or buses
and time is something that won’t exist.
Maybe our spirits can meet along the road
and have that conversation we never finished.

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25
 Time’s Revenge (p. 195)
Other Poems by Theme

Theme: The immigrant experience

 Migrant Bachelor (p. 27)
 Immigrants at Central Station (p.34)
 Crossing the Red Sea (p. 55)
 Migrant Hostel (p.61)
 First Day at School (p. 126)
 Sailing to Australia (p. 104)
Time could never go quickly enough
 Translated into Polish (p. 292)
when he was a child
and every day seemed to last forever;
Theme: The return: when
Remembering andtomorrow
he wished that revisiting places from the past
 Jeogla (p. 9)
would arrive quickly so he could grow up
 Styx River (p.13)
and quickly become an adult –
 Small School at Kunghur (p. 16)
 Mount Warning even(p.
though
19) he never thought about
 Bushfires at Kunghur (p. 22)
what it meant to be growing up
 St Patrick’s College (p.39)
and that after tomorrow
 10 Mary Street (p.47)
there was another day and another.
 Styx River (3) (p. 133)
 Styx River (4) (p. 188)
 Regents ParkNow(p. 269)
he thinks about those hot summer days
 Jeogla (2) (p.when
324)he played chasings
with other boys and girls whose lives

Theme: Rememberinghe has long who

Those since lost
havetrack of –
Died
 Elegy for Donwhen
McLaughlin (p. 42)
they followed a creek of bulrushes
 At Christopher Brennan’s Grace (p. 145)
through a playground of wattles;
 Elegy for Douglas Stewart (p. 146)
when birds sang, wild peaches blossomed
 Elegy for Johnny O’Keefe (p. 148)
and eternity was a meaningless word.
Forty years later he smiles to remember it
Theme: Family and Time’s revenge hardly seems bitter at all.
 Kornelia Wolosszcuk (p. 77)
 My Father’s Birthday (p. 96)
 Leukemia (p.199)
 Alone in Murwillumbah (p. 214)
 Seeing My Parents (p. 214)
 Mother and Son (p. 243)
 Only Child (p. 261)
 My Father’s Watch (p. 278)
 My Father’s Hammer (p. 280)
 Going Fishing with My Son (p. 310)
 Family Portrait (p. 349)  

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Theme: Nature
 Lorikeets (p. 18)
 Bellbird (p. 25)
 The Finches (p. 26)
 Cockatoos at Summer Hill (p. 108)
 Brown Frogs (p. 132)
 Jonquils (p. 164)
 Gang-gang Cockatoos (p. 165)
 Flowering Red Gum (p. 191)
 Black Cockatoos (p. 192)
 A Sparrow’s Wing (p. 296)
 Seabirds (p.338)
 Bushfires at Kunghur(p. 22)
 Cattle (p. 50)
 A Bush Walk at Jeogla (p. 98)
 Salisbury Waters (p. 155)
 The Wind in the Pines (p. 228)

Theme: Faith and Spirituality

 Wrod nocnej ciszy (p. 102)
 Deo Gratias (p. 194)
 Leukemia (p. 211)
 Sunday Visits (p. 266)
 Under the Brandenburg Gate (p. 345)

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 WORD BANK FOR EXTENDED INTERPRETIVE RESPONSE - POETRY

TERMS FOR LITERARY DEVICES – LANGUAGE

alliteration discourse (e.g. repetition figurative language

feminist discourse)
ambiguity metaphor simile imagery
assonance personification stereotype pronoun
colloquialism onomatopaoeia sensory language persona (speaker)
juxtaposition connotation symbol characterisation

TERMS FOR LITERARY DEVICES – STRUCTURE

dramatic monologue enjambment syntax stanza

rhythmical patterns rhyme lyrical organisation
direct speech regularity Free verse stream of
consciousness

TERMS FOR ANALYSIS

Words to describe what the poet is conveying through their use of compositional techniques (poetic
structures, forms, techniques) and /or how they position the reader to respond.

The poet / persona…

evokes creates suggests implies reflects
explores contrasts illustrates endorses reinforces
condones elicits questions challenges condemns
subverts conveys intensifies undermines affirms
highlights demonstrates reiterates exposes reveals
foreshadows develops represents draws attention symbolises
to

Words to describe the impact the poet’s use of compositional techniques may have on the reader.
forces the reader… generates sympathy for … confronts
makes the reader aware of … positions the reader to … disturbs
invites the reader… arrests moves

TERMS FOR DESCRIBING IDEAS, ATTITUDES AND PERSPECTIVES (AUTHOR/CONTEXT)

These word banks contain words that allow you to discuss the various positions that a poet can take
in their representation. Use these word banks when analysing the poet’s representation of Australia.

Words to indicate the poet is in favour of an idea or perspective:

supports endorses commends argues for
validates condones praises approves of
affirms approves upholds honours

Words that indicate the poet is opposed to an idea or perspective:

challenges critiques condemns exposes
questions criticises undermines reflects on
considers argues against subverts contests

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Words to indicate the poet is adopting a neutral position:
examines explores questions investigates
contemplates surveys considers reflects on
The tables above have been adapted from Literature for Senior Students (see Reference List).

LINKING WORDS
The linking words in the table below can be used to strengthen the structure of your responses by
clearly directing the reader through your analysis of the poem/s. You can use these linking words to
express different relationships between the ideas presented in your response. How does each poet
represent Australia? How are their ideas, attitudes and perspectives similar to or different from your
own?

To express a similar To express an To expand on an idea To show a logical

idea opposing idea progression
Similarly... By contrast... Furthermore... Therefore...
Likewise... Yet... Moreover... As a result...
In the same way... However... In addition... Consequently...
Equally... While... For instance... For this reason...
Besides... Despite this... For example... In conclusion...
Another... In comparison... Additionally... The effect of this is...
Also... Nevertheless... In this way... This leads to...
Mirroring this… In opposition… Reinforcing this… This idea is expanded
upon…
Table reproduced from page 101 of Insight English Handbook (see Reference List).

SENTENCE STARTERS FOR REFLECTIVE WRITING

I think... I feel... I believe...

In my opinion... From personal experience... It is my belief that...
The poem made me consider... I identified with... My thoughts towards...
As I have no personal Personal experiences of... The poem has drawn my
experience of... attention to...
The poem made me consider... The poet made me realise... My perception of Australia has
been challenged…
The poem reinforced my The poet increased my My views have been
position... awareness... challenged regarding...

REFERENCE LIST

Beardwood, Napthine & Pohl, 2011, Insight English Handbook, Insight Publications, Australia.
Beardwood, Robert, 2010, Literature for Senior Students, Insight Publications, Australia.

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 STRONG POETRY ESSAYS

SAMPLE 1

In what way does Peter Skrzynecki explore the theme of identity and belonging in his poetry?.

During the aftermath of the Second World War, the country of Poland lost 1/5th of land due to war
reparations. Due to this event, thousands upon thousands of Polish citizens became displaced persons and
refugees immigrating to foreign shores. Peter Skrzynecki's anthology, ‘Old/New World’ explores key themes of
identity and belonging in relation to his own experiences as a Polish immigrant post World War II. Through his
poems, Skrzynecki explores the concept of identity as being separate between parent and child, often
structuring his poems with the aim for the reader to contrast the two separate identities. Furthermore,
Skrzynecki explores the ideas of the collective identity of migrants, showcasing to the reader the shared
memories and foundations of identity within a group. Finally, Skrzynecki examines belonging, specifically, as
the title of his anthology suggests, in the slash between the ‘old’ and the ‘new’ world of different countries. In
summation, Skrzynecki crafts poetry that attempts to prompt readers into questioning the readers own origins
of identity and belonging.

Within his collection of poetry, Skrzynecki explores the idea that identity, although often influenced by family
relations, are separate and individual, particularly in the case of parents and children. In his poem ‘Postcards’,
he personifies and addresses his parents home town stating, ‘Warsaw...I never knew you except in the third
person.’ This implies to the reader the author’s remembrance of the town, however only in the ‘third person’
as in the stories told by those around him. Geographic background often shapes identity, and through this line,
Skrzynecki highlights the separation between himself and the ‘Old Town’. In the following Stanza, Skrzynecki
writes, ‘For the moment, I repeat I never knew you.’, deliberately breaking grammatical rules to emphasize
along with the personification, for this moment, he does not know Warsaw as his parents do. In another poem,
‘Sewerage Works’, Skrzynecki describes revisiting the migrant camp his family had first stayed in after their
arrival in Australia. While recollecting memories, he suddenly begins ‘talking aloud to myself about it’, ‘as if I
desperately had to hear my own explanation’ of the events that had taken place within the camp. Here,
Skrzynecki uses the urgency connotated in the word ‘desperately’ to relate the instinctive need to literally hear
his own voice, and forge an identity of his own surrounding this particular location. The imagery of ‘talking to
myself’ shows to the reader the solitary nature of identity and its separation from that of another individual
despite the camp being a place ‘where we first lived’ . Through his poems Skrzynecki indicates to the readers
the separation between the identity of self and of others, most notably within his relation to geographic
locations.

Throughout his anthology, Skrzynecki also indicates the presence of a collective identity found through those
who have gone through similar experiences together. In ‘Migrant Hostel’, Skrzynecki emphasises this idea,
writing, ‘Nationalities sought each other out instinctively like a homing pigeon’ using a simile and thus likening
the migrants as to homing pigeon; birds of flight who instinctively know the way home. Immediately however,

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he juxtaposes the simile of migrants to a bird flying home, to one that is ‘circling to get its bearings.’ This
undoubtedly implies to the reader that the migrants are struggling to find ‘home’ in this hostel and instead
reach to the ‘accents’ ‘place names’ that hold the familiarity of their lost home, represented by the birds
inability to find home though still able enough to find ‘bearings’. Skrzynecki furthers this idea in ‘Crossing the
Red Sea’, using dialogue to recreate to the reader the atmosphere of storytelling that offers ‘respite’ on the
sea journey. Using quotation marks to indicate another speaker, Skrzynecki adds ‘I remember a field of red
poppies, once’.The bittersweet recollection as connotated within the lines choice of the word ‘remember’,
evokes a sense of fondness for the nature long lost to the reader. Despite its inference to the bloodshed of
previous wars, and even how the scene itself comes before tragedy as noted through the timing of the poem
as found in the word choice ‘once’, subtly indicating a finality to both the memory and the past. Through these
poems Skrzynecki highlights to the reader the idea of a solidarity, and unification between those who share
the same memories, using similes to associate them as to ‘birds’ of a flock, and also through using dialogue to
provoke similar emotions within the audience.

Within Skrzynecki's poetry, the exploration of belonging to both land and culture feature heavily throughout.
In ‘Postcards’ a poem describing a postcard from his parents home town of Warsaw, Skrzynecki personifies a
‘lone tree’ on the bank of the river and writes it as having whispered ‘We will meet before you die.’ The use of
personification in this example allow Skrzynecki to instill within the reader the intensity of the call he feels to
the location. It also examines the need to find physical belonging to a place of origin, and the importance of a
sense of ‘home’. He counters the calling as found in ‘Postcards’ with the isolation felt in ‘Arrival in Austria’.
Here, Skrzynecki uses the ‘storm’ as a metaphor for the war as migrants are ‘driven forward by a wind at our
backs’ like the displacement many Polish migrants felt post world war two. Referencing the journey
undertaken, Skrzynecki opens the second stanza with ‘Walls of houses watched our progress-spoke nothing,
and continued to stare’. Written regarding Italy in 1949, this phrase highlights two aspects of belonging in
relation to Skrzynecki's migrant experience. The first being the isolation felt in the distinct lack of a ‘home’
amongst the ‘walls’ of houses’. The harsh imagery of walls acting like a barrier or a blockade in contrast to
safety and comfort, aim to emphasize the isolation felt within the poem to the reader. The second aspect is
that of an inability to belong to the culture or people itself. As he personifies the way that the houses look,
Skrzynecki effectively personifies the country itself as being hostile in both landscape and society to the plight
of the immigrants and thereby shows a need for belonging to the reader.

In conclusion, throughout Skrzynecki's anthology of poems, Skrzynecki explores key themes of belonging and
identity of both the individual and the collective, notably uses imagery and metaphors to relate these ideas in
an accessible way to the reader. Skrzynecki deceptively simple and flowing verses examine the generational
and ongoing desire in humanity to find the ever changing nature of oneself.

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 SAMPLE TWO

How does Peter Skrzynecki explore the importance of memory in his collection?

The Australian poet Peter Skrzynecki addresses how memories contributed to his experience as an immigrant
arriving in Australia in 1949, leaving the war-struck Europe behind. Documenting his musings in his anthology
Old/New World, Skrzynecki grapples with the importance of his recollections, illustrating them as a central part
of his poetry. This is evident in memories that others share with him, and the impact they had on him growing
up. It is also imperative to focus on the memories of Europe and the voyage over that Skrzynecki can recall, as
his memories of events that happened when he was only a child offer a lot of insight into how he coped with
what he experienced.

It can be seen through Skrzynecki’s poems that memories others had shared with him largely shaped and
defined him. This is largely so in the poem ‘Postcard,’ where a postcard sent from a friend in Poland acts as a
catalyst for reflection on the land that he knows only through stories his parents told. As Skrzynecki migrated
to Australia when he was only four, he was never able to know the ‘Old Town’ of Warsaw as it was before and
after the war, his detachment to the place is clear in the poem. His admittance that he ‘never knew you
[Poland] except in the third person’ alludes to a distance he feels to the land – both physically and emotionally.
By personifying Poland (‘you’), Skrzynecki he is addressing the place as if it were a person he is not familiar
with. His memories have been manipulated by those around him, which has led to a resentment of the home
of his father. While his family had romanticised the land, ‘sheltering’ it despite the bombs that ‘destroyed’ it,
Skrzynecki does not want a connection to the land, evident in his pleading for the memories to ‘let me be,’
suggesting his lack of attachment to Poland. A more accepting response to the reminiscing of others is evident
in ’10 Mary Street,’ a poem that portrays the scene that he and his family enjoyed ‘for nineteen years.’ His
depictions of his family keeping ‘pre-war Europe alive with photographs and letters,’ (and in many more ways,
which is documented through Skrzynecki’s cumulative listing) reveals a youthful pride of the land that he gets
to experience through his parents stories. He conveys to the audience the inclusion he felt in the recalling of
their homeland, how he was able to participate in the culture in a physical manner through the eating of
‘Kielbasa, salt herrings and rye bread.’ Through his parents’ memories of Poland and Europe, Skrzynecki was
able to form a connection to the land – whether he desired to or not. The memories shaped him and defined
his experience as an immigrant in Australia, with little memories of the land he came from.

Skrzynecki’s own memories are very important to the poetry, but it is crucial to consider that he was only four
when he arrived in Australia, so his memories of Poland may be somewhat fabricated, based off the stories he
has heard. One of the earliest recollections that he shares can be found in the poem ‘Crossing the Red Sea.’
This depicts the literal journey that the family took across the ocean to arrive in Australia, a journey that in fact
took four weeks, though it is not mentioned in the poem. His experience of escape is evident through the
religious title of ‘Crossing the Red Sea,’ which represents the Hebrews’ exodus, escaping Egypt in an impossible
journey. His own exodus features themes of exile and journey – both physically and emotionally. This is

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documented in the fluidity of the poem, which flows from sorrow into hope, with an overarching tone of
bittersweet remembrance. The movement of the poem is followed through the use of time, the journey
beginning with a ‘sunset they would never see again,’ while concluding with ‘daybreak’ which ‘took away the
magic of dreams.’ The dichotomy of a beginning with a sunset and an ending with daybreak is prominent as it
conveys the end of their old lives and the beginning of their new lives, the new day representing a tangible
form of hope. Skrzynecki is appealing to the audience as he conveys how unidentifiable that middle ground is,
how uncertain the passage across the ocean is, just like the ‘night.’ By providing his own journey and how ‘the
kindness of the sea’ acted as a psychological healing – which is shown through men who were determined to
never bare their ‘grief’, yet ‘accepting outflung denunciations with a calmness’ – Skrzynecki is providing an
outlet for himself and other immigrants who have left behind a horrible past, as well as any individual who is
progressing in their lives from times of struggle. An earlier memory that Skrzynecki shares is in ‘Arrival from
Austria,’ which is set in Italy in 1949. While his age may have been a hindrance, he simplifies his memories by
using the metaphor of a storm to represent the horrors of war. This is clear in the personification of the wind
in the phrase ‘driven forward by a wind,’ in actuality referring to the war, which drove the family out of their
country. The storm metaphor is used throughout the entire poem, a response that is very likely of a child
experiencing such a tragedy, as it seems that only a storm could be the explanation for something so
horrifying. The childlike response is again evident in the simile ‘aeroplanes lay broken like giant toys,’ an
unusual paradox between war and children. The defence mechanism that is used in the recalling of the
memories is offsetting, as people generally dislike picturing children in images of war and destruction,
Skrzynecki relying on this to emphasise the displacement and loss of belonging that war produces.

Overall, Skrzynecki relies heavily on memories throughout his poetry - both through stories that others have
shared with him, and his own personal memories. His personal experience as an immigrant ingrains the evils of
war in the audience, as it is coming from a child’s early memories, the memories of his parents being a source
of resentment for Skrzynecki as he only holds distorted memories of Europe, as opposed to his family who still
could look fondly on their former home, despite the tragedies that plagued it. Skrzynecki’s contrasting
reactions to memories of his early immigrant experience reveals to the audience the difficulties immigrants
face in identifying with a place – both old and new – thoroughly addressing this in his anthology ‘Old/New
World,’ which doesn’t shy away from conflicting ideas.

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 SAMPLE THREE

Skrzynecki’s childhood is a key source of inspiration for his poems. Discuss.

This student ended up with a study score of 47

Emigrating to Australia in 1949, German-born Peter Skrzynecki experienced the problems associated with being a migrant
throughout his childhood. With Skrzynecki’s upbringing being core to his identity, memories from his youth are found at
the center of many of his poems throughout Old/New World. With his childhood encompassing his both journey to
Australia and his settling in, Skrzynecki uses this as a driver throughout his anthology. However, though fundamental to his
work, his childhood is not his only inspiration, with Skrzynecki’s parents’ recollections also serving as a stimulus for that
which he ‘never knew’.

Skrzynecki’s passage to Australia gives him valuable insight into the migrant experience, with these childhood memories
enabling him to explore the challenges and emotions faced in such circumstances. The never-ending nature of an exile’s
journey is emphasised throughout Skrzynecki’s poetry. In Crossing the Red Sea the author intends to convey the
relentlessness of their displacement through the use enjambment, coupling this with an ambivalent tone to reflect the
uncertainty of where the migrants are going. Skrzynecki’s simultaneous use of emotive language, with the subjects
portrayed with ‘sunken eyes’, and as ‘shirtless’ and ‘barefooted’, serves to highlight the tolling effect inflicted by the ‘day’s
heat’ – symbolic of the never-ending suffering the immigrants are exposed to. Going on to describe the way in which
‘patches and shreds/ of dialogue/ hung from fingertips’ Skrzynecki uses a dash, intending to create a pause in the stanza
and thus emphasise the way in which as an asylum seeker’s problems are not dealt with, but rather shut down. Using the
‘passing waves’ as a symbol the writer furthers this notion, suggesting that just as the waves around them, the issues the
migrants face are insurmountable, and instead better left to float away, despite their continual presence. The struggles
faced by migrants are also explored in Migrant Hostel, with Skrzynecki again using memories from his youth to explore the
difficulties experienced by those with no home. Using alliteration throughout his first stanza, Skrzynecki employs a harsh
‘c’ sound, evocative of the harsh circumstances faced by the migrants, with ‘no one ke[eping] count/ of all the comings
and goings’. This is furthered through a staccato rhythm, with the short and sharp phrasing creating a tone of instability
and thus highlighting the cruelty of their surroundings, with the ‘newcomers’ ‘unaware’ of their futures. By ending this
stanza with alliteration of a soft ‘w’ sound, Skrzynecki contrasts this against the preceding jarring ‘c’ sound, perhaps
intending to reflect the way in which the migrants’ circumstances can so suddenly change. Not only this, but through
creating a more subdued rhythm, the writer intends to convey the hopelessness and weakness of the migrants, with the
ongoing nature of their situation leaving them eternally ‘wondering/ who would be coming next’. Thus, in drawing upon
his experience of migrating to Australia, Skrzynecki highlights the unforgiving circumstances faced by migrants, using this
as a key motivator in many of his poems.

The challenges Skrzynecki confronted as a child in his effort to belong are investigated throughout his poems, with such
explorations based upon his childhood memories. In 10 Mary Street the idea that the writer does not fit into society is
alluded to, with Skrzynecki ‘bursting at the seams/of [his] little blue/ St Patrick’s College cap’. Using the uniform as a
symbol for societal practices, the author asserts that the young boy contained within is not suited to them, instead
needing to break free in order to restore comfort. Moreover, by specifically stating that it is the ‘cap’ that no longer fits,
Skrzynecki suggests that his thinking, as ‘inherited unknowingly’ from his parents, is at the root of his failure to belong.

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Reminiscing on the way he behaved ‘like a hungry bird’, Skrzynecki uses the simile to imply that he was unable to survive
on what Australian culture was providing him. Consequently, despite asserting that ‘[he]’d swear to stay off/ strawberries
and peas forever’ – symbolic of his parents’ ways of thinking –, Skrzynecki contends that ‘ravag[ing] the backyard garden’
was essential to his continuance, with this childhood habit of returning to his roots, though keeping him from belonging, a
key factor in his existence today. The use of enumeration later in the poem is used to again emphasise Skrzynecki’s
struggle to belong. With his family ‘ke[eping] pre-war Europe alive’ with ‘photographs’, ‘discussion’ and ‘kielbasa’ and
image of an overwhelmingly Polish culture within the house is created. However, by preceding this with their ‘whole block’
‘be[ing] gazetted for industry’ it is established that their culture does not fit into Australian ways, and is instead of no
value. In shifting the tone between the stanzas, with a foreboding tone moving into one of nostalgia, Skrzynecki juxtaposes
the two, perhaps intending to reflect the contrasting nature of what his family values – ‘letters’, ‘rye bread’ and ‘Europe’ -,
against that which Australia values – ‘industry’. Consequently, Skrzynecki accentuates the way in which both he and his
family do not belong in Australia, with his childhood memories of how foreign his ‘embracing gestures’ were to his ‘New
world’ inspiring his writing.

Though extracting much of his anthology from his juvenescence, the memories of Skrzynecki’s parents are also drawn
upon. With Skrzynecki ‘never kn[owing]’ ‘Warsaw’ ‘except in the third person’, as identified Postcard, his failure to identify
with much of his past is explored. By juxtaposing the ‘third person’ against the second person term ‘you’, Skrzynecki
highlights the disassociation he feels with the city that his parents ‘cherish’, emphasising his lack of connection and
identification with it. Not only this, but by repeating the phrase ‘I never knew you’, the writer casts focus upon his
rejection of the ‘Old Town’, using a comma to slow the pace of the line and thus further accentuate his estrangement.
Thus, in establishing the fact that he is unfamiliar with the ‘great city/ that bombs destroyed’ it is made clear that his
knowledge and discussion of ‘people [being] massacred’, Warsaw’s ‘domes and towers’ and the ‘White Eagle’s flag’, are as
a result of his parents’ instruction, or in the very least inspired by them. This same notion is explored in Feliks Skrzynecki,
with Skrzynecki again reinforcing that he cannot connect with his Polish roots. With his father and ‘his Polish friends’
‘reminisc[ing]/ about farms where paddocks flowered…wheat…[and] horses’, shared nostalgia is evoked, with the positive
connotations of the verbs conjuring an image of beautiful landscapes where produce and nature abound. However, in
ending with the image of ‘pigs’ being ‘slaughter[ed]’ the preceding wistful memories are overthrown, with the juxtaposing
image of blood and death contrasting against the previous representation. Through this Skrzynecki implies feelings of
frustration, with a bitter tone momentarily emerging, perhaps as a result of Skrzynecki’s inability to identify, and the fact
that he never will be able to due to the fact the ‘beloved’ city has been destroyed by ‘bombs’. Consequently, with
Skrzynecki being unable to identify with the memories of his parents, it is made clear that his explorations of his parents’
hometown are not sourced from his own recollections, but rather, that of his those surrounding.

Skrzynecki’s childhood is made clear to be a key source of inspiration for his writing throughout his poems. Skrzynecki’s
extensive focus on his travels to Australia, coupled with his exploration of the difficulties experienced in belonging, all
draw heavily upon experiences from his youth, making it a primary stimulus in his anthology. However, in using the
memories of his parents in conjunction with this in order to explore who he really is, it is illustrated that though core,
Skrzynecki’s childhood works together with the experiences of others to form his poems and thus explore his own journey
to belonging and discovering his true identity.

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Poetic Device & Definition

Assonance
noun
resemblance of sound between syllables of nearby words, arising particularly from the rhyming of
two or more stressed vowels, but not consonants (e.g. sonnet, porridge ), but also from the use of
identical consonants with different vowels (e.g. killed, cold, culled ).

Personification
Giving human character to an object

Dropped lines (enjambment)

(in verse) the continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet, or
stanza.

Simile
Using ‘Like’ or ‘as’  to use another figure to describe something.

Long metre/short metre (Free Verse)

Poetry does not follow any regular pattern of rhyme or rhythm.

Consonance
Having the same rhythm in among the words.

Onomatopoeia
the formation of a word from a sound associated with what is named

Tricolour (rules of 3)
The inclusion of 3 elements in a sentence in order to empathise a certain argument of the author

Juxtaposition
the fact of two things being seen or placed close together with contrasting effect

Second person pronouns

Using ‘You/Your/Yours’ to look at something

Repetition
Repeat of sentence/ sentence structure/ words

Internal rhymes
a rhyme involving a word in the middle of a line and another at the end of the line or in the middle
of the next.

Colloquialism
a word or phrase that is not formal or literary, typically one used in ordinary or familiar
conversation.

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