We Are Going by Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Aboriginal Epos, Australian History, Universal Poetry

Abstract

The first collection of poetry by an Aboriginal author, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, was published in 1964 by Jacaranda Press. We Are Going embodies key features of Aboriginal literature and can be interpreted as an Aboriginal epos as well as a document in Australian history. Individual stories often painfully interface with the macro-history of white policies towards Indigenous people. This poetical remembering of a recent and traumatic past becomes a form of recovery from trauma itself, since Oodgeroo’s poetics preserve the memory of a much older past, the one of pre-invasion Indigenous culture. This paper aims at analysing Oodgeroo’s poems in this perspective, by focussing on both their epical and historical features, while keeping in mind their specificity as artistic, literary, and poetic texts. The experience of translating W e Are Going for its first Italian edition (Oodgeroo 2013) has been greatly instrumental in coming to terms with the richness and significance of the poems. DOI : 10.17456/SIMPLE-132 Bibliography Assmann, Aleida. 2006. Memory, Individual and Collective. Robert E. Goodin & Charles Tilly eds. The Oxford Handbook of Contextual Political Analysis . Oxford: Oxford Tniversity Press, 210-224. Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. 1995. Nation Language. B. Ashcroft, G. Griffiths & H. Tiffin eds. The Postcolonial StudiesReader . London: Routledge, 309-313. Carlson, Keith T., Kristina Fagan & Natalia Khanenko-Friesen eds. 2011. Orality and Litera ture: Reflections Across Disciplines . Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Carroll, Noel & John Gibson eds. 2011. Narrative, Emotion, and Insight . University Park (PA): The Pennsylvania State University Press. Deleuze, Gilles e Felix Guattari. 1996. Kafka. Per una letteratura minore . Macerata: Quodlibet. Di Blasio, Francesca e Margherita Zanoletti. 2013. Oodgeroo Noonuccal, con We Are Going/E noi andiamo . Trento: Editrice Universita degli Studi di Trento, Collana Labirinti. Di Blasio, Francesca. 2005. The Pelican and the Wintamarra Tree: voci della letteratura aborigena australiana . Trento: Editrice Universita degli Studi di Trento, Collana Labirinti. Di Blasio, Francesca. 2009. Memory is Desire: Epistemological Premises and Desiring Textualities in Indigenous Australian Literature. Textus , 23, 1: 270-298. Di Blasio, Francesca. 2013a. Passato progressivo: “Written On Paperbark”. Di Blasio, Francesca. 2013b. La disseminazione del margine: leggere la letteratura australiana delle donne. Mercedes Arriaga Florez, Salvatore Bartolotta & Milagro Martin Clavijo eds. Ausencias: escritoras en los margenes de la cultura . Sevilla: ArCiBel, 348-365. Di Blasio, Francesca. 2016. “I am born of the conquerors, you of the persecuted”: la Storia s/velata nella poesia di Judith Wrighte e Oodgeroo Noonuccal. Daniele Cerrato ed. Desde los margenes: narraciones y representaciones femininas . Sevilla: Benilde Ediciones, 43-54. Di Blasio, Francesca. 2018. “Pretty deadly tidda business”: la Storia in una vita, la vita in una storia. Rita Huggins e Jackie Huggins [1994]. Auntie Rita , Introduzione. Francesca Di Blasio (traduzione e a cura di). Prefazione di Jackie Huggins. Verona: Delmiglio,9 37. Gallagher, Catherine & Stephen Greenblatt. 2000. Practicing New Historicism . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Kohn, Margaret & Keally McBride. 2011. Political Theories of Decolonization: Postcolonialism and the Problem of Foundations .Oxford: Oxford University Press. Locatelli, Angela ed. 2010. La conoscenza della letteratura/The Knowledge of Literature , Vol. 9. Bergamo: Bergamo University Press, Edizioni Sestante. Mitchell, Susan. 1987. The Matriarchs: Twelve Australian Women Talk About Their Lives to Susan Mitchell . Ringwood (Vic.): Penguin Australia. Oodgeroo Noonuccal/Kath Walker. 1964. We Are Going . Brisbane: The Jacaranda Press. Oodgeroo Noonuccal/Kath Walker. 1964. We Are Going: Poems . Brisbane: The Jacaranda Press. Oodgeroo Noonuccal/Kath Walker. 1966. The Dawn is at Hand: Poems . Brisbane: The Jacaranda Press. Oodgeroo Noonuccal. 1988. Kath Walker in China . Milton (Qld.): The Jacaranda Press. Oodgeroo Noonuccal. 1990. My People . Milton (Qld.): The Jacaranda Press. Oodgeroo Noonuccal/Kath Walker. 2013. We Are Going/E noi andiamo . Francesca Di Blasio e Margherita Zanoletti. OodgerooNoonuccal, con We Are Going/E noi andiamo . Trento: Editrice Universita degli Studi di Trento, Collana Labirinti. Ricoeur, Paul. 2000. La memoire, l’histoire, l’oubli . Paris: Seuil. Riem, Antonella. 2017. A Gesture of Reconciliation Partnership Studies in Australian Literature . Udine: Forum. Shoemaker, Adam. 2004. Black Words White Page: Aboriginal Literature 1929–1988 . Canberra: Australian National University Press. White, Hayden. 1987. The Content of Form: Narrative Discourse and Historical Representation . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. White, Hayden. 2010. The Fiction of Narrative: Essays on History, Literature, and Theory . Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UniversityPress.