robert gray journey the north coast quotes

Journey, the North Coast

Next thing, I wake-up in a swaying bunk

as if on board a clipper

clambering at sea,

and it’s the train that booms and cracks,

it tears the wind apart.

The man’s gone

who had the bunk below me. I swing out,

close his bed and rattle up the sash—

there’s sunlight rotating

off the drab carpet. And the water sways

solidly in its silver bowl, so cold

it joins through my hand.

I see, where I’m bowed,

one of those bright crockery days

from so much I recall.

The train’s shadow, like a bird’s,

flees on the blue and silver paddocks,

over fences that look split from stone,

and banks of fern,

a red bank, full of roots,

over dark creeks, where logs are fallen,

and blackened tree trunks.

Down these slopes move,

as a nude descends a staircase,

slender white eucalypts;

and now the country bursts open on the sea—

across a calico beach unfurled,

strewn with flakes of light

that make the compartment whirl.

Shuttering shadows. I rise into the mirror

rested. I’ll leave my hair

ruffled a bit, stow the book and wash-bag

and city clothes. Everything done, press the latches

into the straining case

that for twelve months have been standing out

of a morning, above the wardrobe

in a furnished room.

Notes on the Poem

• Robert Gray: Poems Summary

by Robert Gray

These notes were contributed by members of the GradeSaver community. We are thankful for their contributions and encourage you to make your own.

Written by Timothy Sexton

“Flames and Dangling Wires”

The speaker begins on the way to a garbage dump or landfill. Smoke from incineration fires rise on one side all around there is that strange optical effect of wobbling vision. Shadowy figures who almost seem to be picking over actual dead bodies are instead attending to the refuse which is a testimony to how the present and future is dependent upon the castaways of the past.

This is an impressionistic poem which posits a truth about twilight as a unique time of day, and supports the argument with evidence suggesting that the dramatic confrontation between light and dark is beyond Shakespeare’s pen and Fellini’s camera. As a mockingbird impersonates a nightingale and blackbird, the speaker thinks of finding meaning in god, but failing.

“Journey, the North Coast”

The speaker awakes in a hammock as if on a ship, but reveals instead he is traveling by train. There was a man occupying the swinging bunk below, but he’s now gone. The final images are of the speaker packing a suitcase and the setting of the train is juxtaposed with a year of living out of that suitcase ensconced in a furnished room.

“Annotation”

This poem begins as an exultation of the newly apprehended awareness that the things we consider neutral in life—those which enact no clearly delineated positive or negative impact—are the things which not only endure, but flourish. What does not endure, much less flourish, are the lives of people which is really just a series of routine sacrifices thought to be of significance, but which all eventually are cast away into some dark corner of memory.

“The Meat Works”

This is a first-person dramatic monologue about a man describing his first day on the job at a slaughterhouse. The bulk of the poem is graphic description of the minutiae of that job as he tells of making a big mistake, but avoiding being fired due to being his first day. He also admits that though the workers were give bags of meat drowning in blood to take home, he comes to eschew the perk. The poem closes with an uneasy and not entirely resonating justification for the blood money.

“Harbour Dusk”

The speaker tells of how he and a woman he was came upon a fading harbor wall by way of an empty park. The imagery tells the story: “overcast sky,” yachts seen across the way on “empty fields of water,” the ships whispering among themselves “as though were resolve were ill.” It is a dark, unhappy place of “melancholy” and “evening confessionals.” The story of the poem, registering symbolically and almost subliminally, is that of a relationship sadly coming to an end.

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Robert Gray: Poems Questions and Answers

The Question and Answer section for Robert Gray: Poems is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.

Study Guide for Robert Gray: Poems

Robert Gray: Poems study guide contains a biography of Robert Gray, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.

• About Robert Gray: Poems
• Character List

Essays for Robert Gray: Poems

Robert Gray: Poems essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Robert Gray: Poems.

• Discovery and Reassessment in the Poetry of Robert Gray
• Perspectives and Discovery
• Discovering Morality through texts
• Discovery in Robert Gray's Poetry & Katherine Mansfield's The Garden
• An intellectual insight to discovery in Gray's poetry anthology 'Coast Road' and Kate Chopin's short narrative

Journey the North Coast #

A journey embarked upon is often intertwined with numerous issues of self discovery such as the personal, inner and mental journeys of the mind. The notion of learning or being taught along the way is neither new nor alien to anyone who has experienced mainstream stories of a hero undergoing trials and hardships to come out the better for it in the end. The archetypal hero undergoes many ordeals and faces many obstacles before realising their destiny, defeating their enemy or, simply, becoming a better person. These exaggerated stories are magnified versions of the day to day choices we face as individuals in our lives and the considerations required in fulfilling our desires for our life quest/journey.

Journeys are a Quest for knowledge; to discover who we are. Karl Jung, a student of Freud, examined the archetypal journey of the hero who proves his valour on a long journey performing impossible tasks, battling monsters, solving unanswerable riddles and overcoming insurmountable obstacles to save the kingdom and perhaps marry the princess. The hero, in passing from innocence (ignorance) to adulthood (maturity) goes through three stages, separation, transformation and return. Journeys can enlighten us.

The term journey originates from middle English, the distance travelled in one day.

Synonyms include, trip, voyage, excursion, expedition, tour, peregrination, ramble, pilgrimage, trek, march, walk, promenade, drive, travel, walkabout odyssey…

The journey described in this poem is a return to home after a year away in the city. There is a distinct air of anticipation of meeting loved ones again.

We start in media res with the poet waking up in a swaying bunk – the first metaphor comparing the train to a small ship on the sea. The noise of “booms and cracks” is a mechanical locomotive tearing nature apart.

The poet describes the interior of the “Red rattler” in deprecating terms, such as “ rattle up the sash”, “drab carpet”, “water sways solidly”. Outside it is a bright crockery day” of his childhood, the train passes scenes of blue and silver paddocks, fences split from stone (hard wood?), a red clay bank (Wauchope?), through slopes of trees ( Marcel Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase ) until the train finally bursts out on the sea (Coffs Harbour?) and he is finally home.

http://www.galleryintell.com/nude-descending-a-staircase-the-armory-show-2013/

The wide range of colour of the silver basin, bright crockery, shadow, blue and silver paddocks, red clay, blackened tree trunks, white gum trees, and finally a calico beach all help us visualise the scenes.

The aural senses are noisy with booms and cracks, rattle, bursts, unfurling, whirl, shuttered, helping to create a realistic atmosphere.

The ending of the poem suggests the poet has spent 12 months away nostalgically longing for this day.

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Close reading notes - analysis of Robert Gray, 'Journey - the North Coast'

Subject: English

Age range: 16+

Resource type: Other

Last updated

21 September 2021

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Journey - the North Coast’, by the Australian poet Robert Gray, has been set for HSC study since 2015. This set of notes gives a full analysis of the poem with a relevant image and a handy grab-box explaining the Discovery element, poetic techniques, and related texts which complement the poem for students who must study it in concert with one other text. Important points are in red.

A simple, one-stop analysis of this complex poem which students can work through in class or take home for private study.

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