Evelyn Araluen's "Dropbear" teachers' review

Brief description and distinctive features

Distinctive features of Dropbear

• A First Nations’ poetic literary resistance stalks through the collection and images tumble and spill onto every page as Araluen goes on the attack against modern Australia’s myth-making about the last 200 years in its history, its literature and its tropes.   
• The three sections in the anthology, Gather, Spectre and Debris, cross-examine past, present and future Australia with First Nations’ eyes. 
• Araluen delivers her depth charges in a range of forms from prose verse to free verse; there are ghost stories, poems with cross outs and UPPER-CASE shout outs and lower-case meanders, that ripple across the page.
• The poet probes and interrogates the poetic form itself and invites readers along for the ride. 
• A wide range of ideas, moods, experiences and contexts are explored; some poems are ferocious, satiric and confronting, others tender with love and many are full of dark humour and lyricism.  
• The ‘dropbear’ in the title is an urban myth, a ferocious koala that drops from the trees to scare tourists. 
• The poet gives voice to the dispossessed and she honours her Country and elders and ancestors. 
• There are memorable and loving dedications: Araluen tells her Mum and Dad, it’s an honour to honour you and For J: every word. Before or after, and no matter what survives us, be it horizons, highways, poems or stars. Every word, and every place it came from.

Ways to use Dropbear in the classroom

Pre reading 

Read Cara Shipp’s Listening from the Heart Rewriting the Teaching of English with First Nations Voices 2023 AATE 150pp to explore better ways to engage with First Nations People and their stories, their history and culture and to understand the protocols and appropriate terminology to use when reading and studying texts by First Nation authors. This warm, wise and generous book will be a huge help in the classroom. 

Listen to what the poet has to say

Evelyn Araluen talks briefly about her collection of poems on the University of Queensland Press website (see the Media tab for links to various interviews) and this short clip could prove a good introduction to the collection.

Group work on poems 

Groups choose one of the poems from the collection. They read the poem aloud or listen to a recording of the poem.

The following poems could be a good starting point 

• ‘PYRO’ is a ferocious and confronting poem about the Black Summer bushfires 
• In ‘Dropbear Poetics’ Araluen uses Dreaming Tiddalik and Bunyip characters to impale misappropriations and ‘‘snugglepot kitsch” and “postmod blinky bill” as well as settlers “potplanting in our sovereignty”.
• ‘Moving Day’ captures slanted light, anxiety, understanding and love amid the minutiae of a relationship. 
• ‘Malay’ is a poem tender with love 
• ‘The Last Endeavour’ provides a very different perspective, on Cook’s voyage to “go in search of the great southern land, of the lost eden, of the darkest abyss”. 
• ‘The Trope Speaks’ is a scathing poem, a list of fears, hopes and experiences.
• In ‘Guarded by Birds’ beauty and sorrow slide from the poem “like soft smoke”.
• In the heartbreaking ‘To the Poets’ past poets’ participation in “the logics of our erasure” is called to account. 

Each group member selects a line or image from their chosen poem and in a paragraph explains what attracted them and the effect of the line or image. Share with neighbours and be prepared to volunteer to read it out aloud.  As a group then make notes on the selected poem using the table below.  

Individual response

Then students write an individual response to the following question: 

In what ways does this poem explore the diverse and complex perspectives and experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples? Make detailed reference to the poem in your response. 

Relevant details in relation to the new English 7-10 syllabus

Text requirements: Dropbear is a poetry collection by an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander author. It includes a range of cultural, social and gender perspectives.

Concepts could include Representation • Perspective • Connotation, Symbol and Imagery.

Syllabus content

• Engage in sustained and varied reading that presents increasingly diverse and complex perspectives and experiences, including those of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples, and respond in a range of ways, including through extended written responses
• Analyse how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors use figurative language and devices to represent culture, identity and experience
• Analysing how Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors, and authors from a range of cultural backgrounds, choose to represent their identities and experiences through texts.
• Engaging with a selection of narratives, poetry and artworks by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander authors, and discussing how words and images are used to reflect connections to Country/Place.

(English K-10 Syllabus 2022 © NSW Education Standards Authority for and on behalf of the Crown in right of the State of New South Wales, 2023)

Connecting texts