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Home > English > Standard > Module B: Close Study of Text > Debbie Westbury

Debbie Westbury

This unit was prepared by Suzan Pattinson, Seven Hills High School

 

Poems set for study	'mouth to mouth'
	'The Scribe’s Daughter'
	'Dapto dressing up'
	'The prince'
	shells
	'coffee and rain'
	'the persistence of memory'

The poet’s style and purpose: general questions

Suggested assessment tasks

About the author

'mouth to mouth'

The poem is in three sections. The first describes the onset of civil strife and the “advancing of the end” for the character described. Escape is available “for a price” but comes with the abandonment of everything “your women, your children, your gold fuel, food and water”. He finds himself on another beach very similar to that from which he fled. 

The second section of the poem details the next stage in the journey ­ awakening and then the refugee camp where the movement to Australia (antipodes) is awaited. 

The final section shows the fate of these people in their new land: their ambition, their diligence and their willingness to tolerate adversity to succeed. The poem concludes with the persona responding to their songs.

Focus questions

1. The poem begins in second person and ends in first person. Investigate this and decide what effect it has on the mood of the poem. (suggestion: detached, spectator, personal, motive, involved)
2. What images are conveyed in “tide of red and flashing metal?” 
3. Why have these images been repeated in the next stanza and what is the effect of adding smoke? 
4. These images are seen “over the heads of your children.” What is the effect of this juxtaposition? Ensure you explain the way Westbury wants us to react to the situation.
5. How is a sense of comfort created at the beginning of Part Two? (suggestion: contrast to previous death image, warmth, soft sounds)
6. How and why is this feeling broken by Westbury? (suggestion: listing, negative words, sense of hopelessness)
7. You’ll see that the focus has shifted from just one refugee to a generalised experience for many. Explain how Part Three shows the experience has motivated the refugees in Australia.
8. You’ll see that the narrator is not one of the refugees: (“I live alone distance is kept”). How does the persona feel about them? (suggestion: “songs that move me to tears and aching … they sound like freedom to me”).

Activities

1. Insert five words to describe (adjectives) the experience of the refugee(s) in the table below. Consider how they have changed and how that is shown to affect them.

   Adjective	Part One	Part Two	Part Three
   1
   2
   3
   4
   5

   
   
   

2. Write a series of six journal entries. Imagine yourself as the described refugee, then chronicle your experience. Write two entries for each part and make sure you not only explain what happened but also your feelings, your hopes and your fears.

3. Research the media for common attitudes towards and ideas about refugees. Explain how this poem challenges those beliefs.

   Consider the fact that many people see the refugee as someone forced to leave his family and start anew. Is there any other way you could see him?

4. Explore the messages in the poem. Think what ideas are communicated about life generally: the drive to survive, the effect of adversity on the human spirit, what freedom really is.

'The Scribe’s Daughter'

Focus questions

1. The sub-title refers to the discovery of the book. Why is it ironic? (suggestion: how focused was the scribe on the book?)
2. The focus in the poem is on the reaction to the death as opposed to the cause or the events surrounding it. Note the scribe’s care and attention to detail. What is Westbury trying to highlight? (suggestion: human feelings and emotions)
3. The poem is abundant in positive images. List them. How do they affect the tone and our reaction to the scribe’s actions? (note references to the oasis, soft ‘s’ sounds, the moon, girl’s appearance. What are we approving of?)
4. The book is described in great detail and it is noted he had “hands stained with his life’s work”. What is Westbury trying to emphasise by this? (suggestion: how important was the book previously? Now what is important? A message for us?)
5. What is meant by “closed her lips on the songs of prophecy, penitence and praise”? (suggestion: relevance of religion?)

Activities

1. As the scribe, write your thoughts as you sit at the graveside of your daughter. Explain how you feel and how you have tried to help her.
2. As the discoverer of the book of psalms in the grave in 1984, write what you have found and how you feel.
3. This poem can be said to be a celebration of human emotion, especially love. Explain how this comment can be made.

'Dapto dressing up'

Dapto, a town on the New South Wales south coast, is the subject of this poem. Dapto is adjacent to the mining areas of Wollongong and Port Kembla. In this poem, Dapto is presented as a town of beauty and glamour. The poem is rich in colour and light and there is a sense of calm as the onset of night is described.

Focus questions

1. List all the words describing colour in the poem. What is the effect of these particular words? (suggestion: why not “blue”, “dark purple”)
2. What is Dapto being compared to in the line: ”she wants to wear short skirts while her legs look good “? What does this imply about the place? (suggestion: appreciation of beauty while it lasts/is perceived)
3. It is important to note that Westbury is not pretending the usually ugly “escarpments” and “mines” do not exist. Instead she purposely refers to them. Why? (suggestion: the beauty of living, even ordinarily)
4. There is no punctuation in the poem. How does this affect the tone and pace of the poem? (suggestion: a sense of wonder, breathlessness)

Activities

1. Create a collage or visual representation of the images and messages in the poem as you respond to them. How has Westbury used a stereotype of women in the poem?
2. Explore the idea that perhaps the Dapto presented is not actually beautiful but crass and glitzy with the oncoming dark as an ominous sign. Can this reading of the poem be supported?

The prince

This poem celebrates the human emotions and feelings of the fathers of Port Kembla. Westbury likens them to the princes known through common fairytales. The Tin Soldierwas a fairytale that told of a soldier’s unyielding love of a ballerina whereas The Little Prince tells of a prince whose imagination, genuine feelings and understanding of freedom is admirable. The Happy Prince is again selfless and a champion of the vulnerable. They are each men of honour, bravery, consistency and love. 

Westbury begins with the fathers’ collection of their young children from school. She highlights their doting love for their children as they give “a long, slow smile”. Yet it is devotion that is unnoticed, as people from all walks of life are too self absorbed as they are “humming along on their own asteroids”. As a father, each man is “still the prince.” His love is as “bright“ and vulnerable as that he had as a bridegroom. The reality of society’s filth and imperfection,”the dark, dirty sprawl of industria” has not tarnished him. Even though he has made sacrifices and his environment is not that of the fairytales (there is no “mirror" lake and neither are there“white waxen swans” but “comical pelicans”), his capacity for unconditional love is celebrated by Westbury. Life is harsh  yet “it is only with the heart that one can see rightly.”

Focus questions

1. The poem begins with a reference to the fairytales:
   The Brave Tin Soldier by Hans Christian Andersen
   The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde

   These sites have the texts in full. Reading these tales will help you to understand many of the images Westbury uses in the poem. 

2. What do the following parts of the poem refer to?  “Steel City”*
   “Metal cacophony”
   “Sulphurous gloom”
   ”Cardboard castle”
   “Iron inferno”
   “his rose, his sparrow, his ballerina”
   “land of tears”
   *There is a pun here that should be appreciated.

3. Explain why images such as above are used. How do they help communicate the poet’s ideas? (suggestion: fairytale type descriptions: readily related to, reminders of youth, emphasis of the fantasy of many hopes in the real world, importance of love)

4. Find a quote that details the six acts of love shown from father to child. Why does the poet include such detail?

   Act of love	Quotation
   Picks up children
   Walk children home
   Holds hands
   Smiles at children
   Ties shoelace
   Listens to them

   
   
   
5. Think about the use of “small” when she describes “his small acts of love.” Are we supposed to really consider them “small”? Why does she describe them this way?

Activities

1. Compare the presentation of the city and its people to the father and his love. You might do this by listing quotes and pictorially. Explain how Westbury feels about each.
2. Write an interview with the father in the poem. What are his priorities, his disappointments and his goals for the future?
3. In a group, create a dramatisation of the poem designed to help communicate Westbury’s messages to the audience.

'shells'

In this poem the narrator comments on life. The poem chronicles stages of life from childhood to old age and our attitudes towards that life. Westbury sustains a symbolic use of the sea throughout the poem. The sea comes to represent innocence, hope and an appreciation of the beautiful and wondrous. The poem begins by referring to the shells on beaches. These seem constant and ever present, no matter how they are spread. The next stanza deals with the common childhood experience of exploring the beaches and appreciating the beauty and wonder of the seaside, irrespective of pain (“ignoring the pain of feet lacerated”) or discomfort (“the wind …tugging at your buttons”). 

The next section marks a change as it looks at adulthood. We are “grown up now and growing old” and there is a sense that this is a mind-set that chooses to ignore the “youthful dreams”. There is a movement to the edge of the land back from the sea. It is significant that there is no mention of the sea in the next section, as the life has become “dull drunken domestic bliss” no matter what the activity. There seems a passive existence where the reference to “cancer and cars corroding”, make the use of the term “bliss” sarcastic. Life has developed into a hopeless drudgery without sensual appreciation or vitality. In the final section of the poem, when death is imminent, “when you can hear the echo of your own breath in the diminishing spiral chambers of your heart”, there is the occasional remembered sensitivity. The sounds of the sea can be heard but it is too late. 

Focus questions

1. Summarise what stage of life is shown in each and Westbury’s beliefs about it. For each comment you make provide a quotation that shows how you came to this conclusion
2. How would you describe the tone of each stage? Can you explain how it is created? (suggestion: think about the rhythm and the repetition of sounds)
3. The sea and its wonders seem to represent the appreciation of the wonder of life. Why do you think references to it decrease as the poem progresses?
4. “Sometimes night calls a truce”. What is the fight? (suggestion: “the mind-set of age, dissatisfaction with life”)
5. How does Westbury feel about living our lives this way? Show how she communicates her attitude through not only what she says but how she says it. (suggestion: discuss the connotations of particular words, the tone, the use of the beach symbol, her use of sounds, her sarcasm)

Activities

1. Rewrite the poem as a cartoon strip with each section being a frame. Don’t just illustrate the poem but try and communicate the essential ideas visually.
2. This poem can be said to trace the loss of innocence and the ability to see the wondrous around us. Discuss this statement with close reference to the poem.
3. As Debbie Westbury, explain what happens to us as we get older and what we forget about. Make recommendations to us that you think will promote greater happiness and achievement.

 

 

The poet’s style and purpose: general questions

Westbury writes using free verse and a minimum of punctuation. What is the effect of this on the first reading? Suggest reasons. Why do you think she chooses this style? Think about the limitations of rhyme and formal verse. How does Westbury feel about limitations like this?

You need to be able to see connections between the different poems you have studied. What do you see as the main ideas Westbury communicates through her poetry? (suggestion: showing our feelings, appreciating the wonder of life, criticism of the modern world’s inhumanity, freedom, etc.) Decide on four or so key ideas and create a mind-map, a diagram or a summary. Note which poems the ideas appear in and give detailed quotes and devices used to communicate them.

You also need to examine the poetic techniques that Westbury likes to use in her work. Draw parallels between the poems. For example, which of the following are used? How are they used?

first person narration	rhyme	free verse	metaphor
second person narration	symbols	enjambment	personification
third person narration	allusion	colour	inversion
repetition	puns	assonance	similes
oxymoron	alliteration	emotive words

Suggested assessment tasks

These may be individual or group tasks. Students could also submit a learning journal as a reflection on the activity and their performance in it. A class may be presented with the full range of tasks so they choose which one they do. Peer assessment would also provide students with valuable feedback.

Task 1

(a)       Create a series of images or a montage representing the poetry and the ideas you see as important to Westbury. Present these using a form of your own choosing.

(b)       Prepare an explanation to present to the class. You will need to submit a written version of this with your creation.

Outcomes focus: 3, 4, 6, 12

Modes: representing, viewing, speaking

Task 2

Westbury seems to value human emotions, especially love, but has a disdain for society’s inhumanity and oppression. Where do we see these ideas in the poetry studied?

(a)       Discuss your ideas in an essay.

(b)       You will have to present your ideas to the class orally. You may use anything you choose to assist in your presentation.

Outcomes focus: 3, 4, 6, 12

Modes: writing, reading, speaking

Task 3

Write and record a ten to fifteen minute radio show where Westbury reads and discusses her poetry for HSC students. She would choose excerpts of her poetry to read based on their entertainment value and how well they illustrate the points she was making. Westbury would assume the students knew her poetry and would ensure she gave ideas about both her messages and techniques.

Outcomes focus: 3, 4, 6, 12

Modes: writing, reading, speaking 

Task 4

1.Rehearse and present a poem or excerpt of approximately 25 lines. You may choose to accompany the piece with sound effects or any other technique designed to enhance its effect.

2.Explain how you feel about this piece and what ideas you feel it is communicating. You must also submit a written version of your ideas.

Outcomes focus: 3, 4, 6, 12

Modes: writing, reading, speaking

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