We Are Going

Last updated

We Are Going
Author Oodgeroo Noonuccal
CountryAustralia
Language English
GenrePoetry collection
PublisherJacaranda Press
Publication date
1964
Media typePrint
Pages43 pp

We Are Going (1964) is a collection of poems by Australian writer Oodgeroo Noonuccal. It was published by Jacaranda Press in 1964. [1]

Contents

The collection includes 29 poems by the author, from a variety of original sources. This is the first collection of poems by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (originally published as by "Kath Walker"). [1]

Contents

  • "Aboriginal Charter of Rights"
  • "My Love"
  • "Colour Bar"
  • "Son of Mine"
  • "I Am Proud"
  • "Namatjira"
  • "The Dispossessed"
  • "The Teachers"
  • "Then and Now"
  • "White Man, Dark Man"
  • "Corroboree"
  • "Cookalingee"
  • "Stone Age"
  • "Freedom"
  • "We Are Going"
  • "Tree Grave"
  • "United We Win"
  • "The Bunyip"
  • "Gooboora, the Silent Pool"
  • "Dawn Wail for the Dead"
  • "Acacia Ridge"
  • "The Unhappy Race : The Myall Speaks"
  • "Whynot Street"
  • "White Australia"
  • "The Protectors"
  • "Intolerance"
  • "Let Us Not Be Bitter"
  • "An Appeal"
  • "A Song of Hope"

Dedication

Critical reception

Writing in the Sydney Tribune reviewer Jim Henderson called the collection a "battle cry", and stated: "No one with a spark of humanity in their make-up will remain unmoved after reading Kath Walker's book of poems We Are Going...The racists won't like it, the cattle barons who make money out of the exploitation of the colored stockmen will find it distasteful, but the ordinary Australian democrat will hail it...The book is in the genuine Australian tradition of Lawson and Co., and, though unique in that it is the first ever by an Australian Aboriginal, it can stand on its own feet as literature." [2]

Publication history

After the book's initial publication by Jacaranda Press in 1964, [3] it was then published as follows:

The book was also translated into Italian in 2013. [1]

Notes

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Judith Wright</span> Australian poet, environmentalist and Indigenous rights campaigner

Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights. She was a recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australian literature</span> Literature by Australian writers

Australian literature is the written or literary work produced in the area or by the people of the Commonwealth of Australia and its preceding colonies. During its early Western history, Australia was a collection of British colonies; as such, its recognised literary tradition begins with and is linked to the broader tradition of English literature. However, the narrative art of Australian writers has, since 1788, introduced the character of a new continent into literature—exploring such themes as Aboriginality, mateship, egalitarianism, democracy, national identity, migration, Australia's unique location and geography, the complexities of urban living, and "the beauty and the terror" of life in the Australian bush.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Oodgeroo Noonuccal</span> Aboriginal Australian poet, artist, teacher and campaigner for Indigenous rights

Oodgeroo Noonuccal ( UUD-gə-roo NOO-nə-kəl; born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, later Kath Walker was an Aboriginal Australian political activist, artist and educator, who campaigned for Aboriginal rights. Noonuccal was best known for her poetry, and was the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jindyworobak Movement</span> Australian literary movement

The Jindyworobak Movement was an Australian literary movement of the 1930s and 1940s whose white members, mostly poets, sought to contribute to a uniquely Australian culture through the integration of Indigenous Australian subjects, language and mythology. The movement's stated aim was to "free Australian art from whatever alien influences trammel it" and create works based on an engagement with the Australian landscape and an "understanding of Australia's history and traditions, primeval, colonial and modern".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jack Davis (playwright)</span> Indigenous Australian playwright (1917–2000)

Jack Leonard Davis was an Australian 20th-century Aboriginal playwright, poet and Aboriginal Australian activist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musgrave Park, Brisbane</span>

Musgrave Park is a park in South Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. The park is bordered by Edmonstone, Russell, and Cordelia Streets, and Brisbane State High School, and has an area of 63,225 square metres (680,550 sq ft). The park is of cultural significance to Aboriginal Australians.

Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Shearston</span> Musical artist

Gary Rhett Shearston was an Australian singer-songwriter and Anglican priest. He was a leading figure of the folk music revival of the 1960s and performed traditional folk songs in an authentic style. He scored a top 10 hit in the United Kingdom in 1974 with his cover version of Cole Porter's song "I Get a Kick out of You". From the 1990s he also worked as a priest in rural New South Wales.

Denis Percy Arnold Walker, also known as Bejam Kunmunara Jarlow Nunukel Kabool, was an Aboriginal Australian activist. He was a major figure in the civil rights and land rights movements of the 1970s and continued to fight for a treaty between the Australian Government and Aboriginal nations through the 1990s and until his death.

The Fellowship of Australian Writers (FAW) is an association for Australian writers. It was established in Sydney in 1928, with the aim of bringing writers together and promoting their interests. The organisation played a key role in the establishment of the Australian Society of Authors in 1963, a national body and now the main professional organisation in Australia for writers of literary works.

The Fringe Dwellers is a 1986 film directed by Bruce Beresford, based on the 1961 novel The Fringe Dwellers by Western Australian author Nene Gare. The film is about a young Aboriginal girl who dreams of life beyond the family camp that sits on the fringe of white society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bronwyn Bancroft</span> Australian artist (born 1958)

Bronwyn Bancroft is an Aboriginal Australian artist, administrator, book illustrator, and among the first three Australian fashion designers to show their work in Paris. She was born in Tenterfield, New South Wales, and trained in Canberra and Sydney.

This article presents a list of the historical events and publications of Australian literature during 1920.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Quandamooka people</span>

The Quandamooka people are Aboriginal Australians who live around Moreton Bay in Southeastern Queensland. They are composed of three distinct tribes, the Nunukul, the Goenpul and the Ngugi, and they live primarily on Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands, that form the eastern side of the bay. Many were pushed out of their lands when the English colonial government established a penal colony near there in 1824. Each group has its own language. A number of local food sources are utilised by the tribes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders</span> Australian agency

The Federal Council for the Advancement of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders (FCAATSI), founded in Adelaide, South Australia, as the Federal Council for Aboriginal Advancement (FCAA) on 16 February 1958, was a civil rights organisation which campaigned for the welfare of Aboriginal Australians and Torres Strait Islanders, and the first national body representing Aboriginal interests. It was influential in lobbying in favour of the 1967 Referendum on Aboriginal Australians. It was renamed to National Aboriginal and Islander Liberation Movement (NAILM) in the early to mid 1970s, before disbanding in 1978.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indigenous Australian literature</span> Literature produced by Indigenous Australians

Indigenous Australian literature is the fiction, plays, poems, essays and other works authored by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia.

Daisy Bindi (1904—1962), also known as Mumaring, was an Aboriginal Australian Indigenous rights activist and a leader in the landmark 1946 Pilbara strike in Western Australia.

Yvette Henry Holt is an Aboriginal Australian poet, essayist, academic, researcher and editor, she heralds from the Bidjara, Yiman and Wakaman nations of Queensland. The youngest child born to prominent Aboriginal Elder, Albert Holt and Marlene Holt. Holt came to prominence with her first multi-award-winning collection of poetry, Anonymous Premonition, published by the University of Queensland Press in 2008. Since 2009 Holt has lived and worked in Central Australia among the Central and Western Arrernte peoples of Hermansburg and Alice Springs.

The Aboriginal Publications Foundation (APF) was a national Australian Aboriginal organisation that existed from 1970 to 1982, based first in Sydney, New South Wales, and later in Perth, Western Australia. It existed to promote and fund creative arts projects by Aboriginal people, especially written works. It published a national quarterly magazine called Identity (1971–1982), which carried articles by many prominent Aboriginal rights activists.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal". Austlit. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  2. ""'We are going' is a battle cry"". Tribune, 6 May 1964, p7. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  3. "We are Going (Jacaranda Press 1964)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  4. "We are Going (Citadel Press 1965)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 December 2023.
  5. "We are Going (Jacaranda Press 1965)". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 4 December 2023.