Robert Gray's poetry is relevant to a modern audience as he explores significant issues regarding the relationship between man and the natural world.
Robert Gray's poetry successfully explores important issues relating to the relationship between man and nature, which are relevant to a modern audience. The poems Flames and Dangling Wire and Journey: The North Coast, through an amalgamation of techniques, convey important environmental issues.
Born and raised on the north coast of NSW, Australia, this rural environment impacted greatly on Gray's life and poetry, fostering his affinity with nature. This spiritual connection with nature was also inherited from Gray's father. His mother played a role as well as he rebelled from her Christian religion resulting in him embracing a Zen-Buddist life. These background influences have been combined with Gray's love of language and literature, resulting in Gray becoming one of Australia's leading imagist poets. Gray questions and challenges social practises and attitudes in the treatment of the natural surroundings and also promotes having a spiritual connection with the natural environment.
Robert Gray's poetry is relevant to a modern audience as it explore significant issues related to man's relationship with nature. Throughout his poem Flames and Dangling Wire, Gray uses the recurring motif of Hell on Earth in order to demonstrate the negative impact of the dump and the city. The simile "as in Hell the devils might poke about through our souls for vestiges of appetite" compares the workers at the dump with demons, reinforcing Gray's negative depiction of man's impact on the natural environment. The Christian belief in Hell is reflective of Gray's upbringing as a member of his mother's Jehovah's Witness religion. The negative view of the civilised world is echoed in Gray's poem Journey: The North Coast in which the composer describes his journey on a train coming home to the country from the city. While the poem is not as critical of man's impact on the natural environment as the perspective presented in Flames and Dangling Wire, Gray still conveys a negative view of the city in comparison to the country. Gray's description of the "case that for twelve months" he has watched and the wardrobe in his room in the city symbolises the restriction he feels in the environment constructed by man. The desire to leave the city and return home to the country reflects the significant impact of Gray's rural upbringing. Through his portrayal of man's destructive impact on the natural environment, Gray's poetry also provides a relevant example for a modern audience.
Gray's poems Flames and Dangling Wire and Journey: The North Coast effectively convey the poet's concern with man's relationship with nature through a variety of poetic techniques. The issues explored continue to be relevant and significant for a contemporary audience showing Gray's skill as a poet.
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English Essays
Non-FictionA collection of english critical responses showcasing Elizabeth Gaskell's Realist novel "North and South", a genre study, an analysis of Robert Gray's poetry, an essay on Tim Winton's short stories, Boaz Yakin's film "Remember The Titans" and a comp...
