Sunday, February 18, 2018

How does Malouf, in his text Earth Hour, explore the progression of day to night, and how does he use dark and light imagery? How does Malouf explore the movement of time?

In the volume of collected poems Earth Hour, David Malouf frequently puts the reader into the crossings of space and time. One notable way he does so is in locating his native Australia at the border of east and west, as Martin Duwell has noted. Movement in either direction takes one into the past or the future because of Australia’s proximity to the International Date Line. Malouf’s poem “Good Friday Flying West” references the changeover of a full day in seconds, along with observing the Christian holiday commemorating death. Within those moments, the poet implies, one can understand the dark associated with the period between Jesus’s death and resurrection. At the same time, the dark of night shows that when business and cultural venues, such as museums, are still closed, the associated stillness takes one back into ancient times, traversing centuries toward our origins and a different kind of salvation, through Noah, at Mount Ararat.

the pluck and flow of the planet takes usback, half a dayor centuries; driftways
descend from Mt Ararat. Unrisenahead the dazzling dinning bee-hive cities.Museums not yet open . . .
http://www.australianpoetryreview.com.au/2014/04/david-malouf-earth-hour/

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