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  •  

Judith Wright

Country Town

  • 1 Woman to Man | Translations: de
  • 2 Country Town | Translations: de
Language: english
Translations: german (Provinzstadt)
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Country Town

This is no longer the landscape that they knew,
the sad green enemy country of their exile,
those branded men whose songs were of rebellion.
The nights were cold, shepherding; and the dingoes
bawling like banshees in the hills, the mist coming over
from eastward chilled them. Beside the fire in the hut
their pannikin of rum filled them with songs
that were their tears for Devonshire and Ireland

and chains and whips and soldiers. Or by day
a slope of grass with small sheep moving on it,
the sound of the creek talking, a glimpse of mountains,
looked like another country and wrenched the heart.
They are dead, the bearded men who sang of women
in another world (sweet Alice) and another world.

This is a landscape that the town creeps over;
a landscape safe with bitumen and banks.
The hostile hills are netted in with fences
and the roads lead to houses and the pictures.
Thuderbolt was killed by Constable Walker
long ago; the bones are buried, the story printed.

And yet in the night of the sleeping town, the voices:
This is not ours, not ours the flowering tree.
What is it we have lost and left behind?
Where do the roads lead? It is not where we expected.
The gold is mined and safe, and where is the profit?
The church is built, the bishop is ordained,
and this is where we live: where do we live?
And how should we rebel? The chains are stronger.

Remember Thunderbolt, buried under the air-raid trenches.
Remember the bearded men singing of exile.
Remember the shepherds under their strange stars.

© by permission of ETT Imprint
From: A Human Pattern: Selected Poems
Bondi Junction: ETT Imprint, 1996
Audio production: courtesy of the National Library of Australia, Hazel de Berg Collection

Translations:

Language: german

Provinzstadt

Das ist nicht mehr die Landschaft, die sie kannten,
das traurige grüne Feindland ihres Exils,
die gebranntmarkten Männer mit ihren rebellischen Liedern.
Die Nächte waren kalt, beim Schafe hüten, und die Dingos
brüllten in den Hügeln wie Todesfeen, während der Nebel
aus dem Osten sie frösteln ließ. Am Feuer in der Hütte
füllte sie der Rum in ihren Blechbechern mit Liedern,
die ihre Tränen waren für Devonshire und Irland

und Ketten, Peitschen und Soldaten. Oder bei Tag:
eine abfallende Wiese, auf der sich kleine Schafe bewegten,
der Laut eines sprechenden Baches, ein kurzer Blick auf Berge
sahen aus wie ein anderes Land und verwundeten das Herz.
Sie sind tot, die bärtigen Männer, die die Frauen einer anderen
Welt (sweet Alice) besangen und einer anderen Welt.

Das ist eine Landschaft, über welche die Stadt kriecht;
eine Landschaft, gesichert mit Asphalt und Böschungen.
Die feindseligen Hügel sind mit Zäunen eingedämmt
und die Straßen führen zu Häusern und den Bildern.
Thunderbolt wurde schon vor langem von Constable Walker
getötet; die Knochen begraben, die Geschichte gedruckt.

Und doch, in der Nacht der schlafenden Stadt, die Stimmen:
Das ist nicht unser, nicht unser der blühende Baum.
Was haben wir verloren, was zurückgelassen?
Wo führen diese Straßen hin? Nicht wohin wir erwarteten.
Das Gold ist gefördert und sicher, und wo ist der Profit?
Die Kirche ist gebaut, der Bischof geweiht,
und hier ist es, wo wir wohnen: wo wohnen wir?
Und wie sollten wir rebellieren? Die Ketten sind stärker.

Gedenke Thunderbolts, begraben unter Luftschutzgräben.
Gedenke der bärtigen Männer, die vom Exil singen.
Gedenke der Hirten unter ihren fremden Sternen.

Aus dem Englischen übersetzt von Margitt Lehbert
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Judith Wright

photo © Harper Collins Publisher
* 31.05.1915, Armidale, NSW, Australia
† 25.06.2000, Canberra, Australia

Judith Wright was born in 1915 at Thalgaroch Station, near Armidale in the New England district of NSW. Her forebears had been among the first settlers of the area in the early decades of the nineteenth century. She was educated at the University of Sydney, and taught at the University of Queensland from 1943-1947. Her first volume of poems, The Moving Image , was published in 1946. Her subsequent collections include Woman to Man (1949), The Gateway (1953), The Two Fires (1955), Birds (1962), Five Senses (1963), The Other Half (1966), Alive: Poems 1971-1972 (1973), Fourth Quarter and Other Poems (1976) and Phantom Dwelling (1985). Her Collected Poems 1942-1970 was published in 1971. Her poetry is now available in the volume A Human Pattern: Selected Poems (ETT Imprint, 1996).

 photo © Harper Collins Publisher
Wright was an astute critic of Australian poetry, and her essays on Australian poets in Preoccupations in Australian Poetry (1965) are a major contribution to Australian literary history. A further collection of literary essays and reviews, Because I Was Invited, was published in 1975. She gave an account of her family's history in Generations of Men (1959) and The Cry for the Dead (1981). Wright was a campaigner for Aboriginal land rights and an active conservationist, and her writing in these areas appear in We Call for a Treaty (1985), Born of the Conquerors (1991) and Going on Talking (1992).

A winner of many literary awards, Judith Wright received the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1992. A biography, South of My Days, by Veronica Brady, was published by HarperCollins in 1998. She died in 2000.

Publications
  • Australian Bird Poems

    1940

  • The Moving Image

    1946

  • Woman to Man

    1949; repr. 1967

  • The Gateway

    1953

  • The Two Fires

    1955

  • Kings of the Dingoes

    for children

    1958

  • Generations of Men

    (historical)

    1959

  • The Day the Mountains Played

    for children

    1960

  • Birds

    Poems

    1962

  • Range the Mountains High

    1962

  • Country Towns

    1963

  • Five Senses

    1963

  • Preoccupations in Australian Poetry

    Essays on Australian poets

    1965

  • The Other Half

    Poems

    1966

  • Collected Poems 1942-1970

    1971

  • Alive

    Poems 1971-1972

    1973

  • Because I Was Invited

    Essays and reviews

    1975

  • Fourth Quarter and Other Poems

    1976

  • The Double Tree

    Selected Poems, 1942-1976

    1978

  • The Cry for the Dead

    (historical)

    1981

  • Phantom Dwelling

    Poems

    1985

  • We Call for a Treaty

    1985

  • Born of the Conquerors

    1991

  • Going on Talking

    Essays

    1992

  • Collected Poems 1942-1985

    1994

  • A Human Pattern

    Selected Poems

    Bondi Junction: ETT Imprint, 1996

Awards
  • 1950 Grace Leven Prize

  • 1964 Aurtralia-Britannica Award

  • 1972 Grace Leven Prize for Poetry

  • 1976 FAW Christopher Brennan Award

  • 1977 Robert Frost Memorial Award

  • 1984 Australian World Prize

  • 1992 Queen's Medal for Poetry

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