The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle
The Buladelah-Taree Holiday Song Cycle is a poem by Australian writer Les Murray. It was originally published in The Herald newspaper on 7 September 1976, and later included in several of the poet's collections and other poetry anthologies.
Synopsis
The poem is written "in an Australian Aboriginal meter " and "is based thematically and structurally on R. M. Berndt's translation of the Wonguri-Mandjikai song, 'The Moon-bone Song', from north-eastern Arnhem Land."The poem describes the annual migration of holiday-makers, during the end of year summer period, to the mid-north coastal region of NSW between Bulahdelah and Taree.
Critical reception
In a review of the poet's collection Ethnic Radio critic Thomas Shapcott called it a poem "of perhaps far-reaching implications. There is an almost Whitmanesque collective and accretive rhetoric."In his book Reading Australian Poetry Andrew Taylor commented "Murray's attempted fusion of cultures is itself an ideological act, as is his arranging them in oder of distinctiveness. In this arrangement urban culture is clearly third best, while rural culture is shown as converging with the Aboriginal. Perhaps, more accurately, Aboriginal culture which was destroyed by white settlement is shown as re-emerging within rural culture".
Critic Jonathan Dunk, writing about Murray's oeuvre after the poet's death, called the poem "uncomplicatedly evil". He explained this by noting that it is "an extremely sophisticated version of, it appropriates the cadence and the ideas of Aboriginal culture to describe and praise the white Australian society which tried so hard to eliminate it."