Reflections on Bullocky

On the other hand, ‘Bullocky’ (p.9) is narrated in the third person (omniscient
narration). The bullocky, a character similar to a drover, transported goods
overland with a team of bullocks (castrated bulls tied together in a team). This
is not a first-hand account but, rather, the view of one who could be
considered to be a universal man. As in ‘South of My Days’, he is firmly
placed within the landscape (see analysis under ‘Different Interpretations’).
The ending in ‘Bullocky’ is less poignant than that in the story of Dan the
drover. The first-person strategy that allowed us a personal view of both the
speaker and Dan is more successful than the third-person view of the
Bullocky. First-person narration brings readers an immediacy of experience
that is lacking in the second poem, where we see the Bullocky from a
distance. This extra remove does not permit us to engage so readily with the
subject and leads to some ambiguity of meaning.

Insight text article on A Human Pattern: Selected Poems

A.D. Hope thought that “Bullocky” (17) was Wright’s best poem, and believed it to be a representation of
the success of Australian poets in coming to terms with the land. 15 Walker claims that the poem shows
compassion for the bullocky, and celebrates his heroic virtues, his readiness to suffer for his vision, in
which past, present, and future are fused “into a mythic continuum of suffering and sacrifice which are
necessary for the progress of the race.” 16 Yet there is an uneasiness throughout, which undermines the
bullocky’s vision and the sense of celebration. The passage of time is threatening, here as in so many of
Wright’s poems: it makes the bullocky go mad. The word Wright uses to indicate this – “widdershins” –
can mean simply “in the wrong direction”, or it can mean anticlockwise, in the opposite direction to the sun.
Taken in the second sense, the word locates the bullocky, and by implication the enterprise of which he
is a part, at odds with the workings of nature. The second stanza is quite often taken literally; critics
assert, as did W.N. Scott in another context, that “the landscape is inhabited.” 17 The landscape does
become inhabited, in a sense; the “solitary tracks” become “populous before his eyes, / and fiends and
angels used his road.” However, it is not a landscape meaningfully or productively populated; in fact, the
landscape is “populous” only in the deluded eyes of the bullocky. The bullocky is a truth-teller only in the
sense that his dreams are “apocalyptic”: his is a world that is coming to an end. To Walker, the bullocky
is a visionary; 18 but in my view, the sense of unease throughout the poem demands an ironic reading.

In the poem, night creeps up on the bullocky, 19 and he hears the “sweet, uneasy sound” of
“centuries of cattlebells.” John Salter accurately points out that the cattlebells he is hearing cannot
be Australian, for cattle have not existed in Australia for “centuries.” 20 This is another moment of
the uncanny: in the sound of centuries of cattlebells, the past is recurring, but it is the British past
transposed onto the Australian landscape – it is at once familiar and strange, “sweet” and “uneasy.”
The uncanniness in this poem has great significance for Australian history, which is made clear in
the two final stanzas. The land is being used for a different purpose and the world of the bullocky is no
more. That the vineyards cover “all the slopes” (my emphasis) suggests progress and productivity,
yet there still remains a deep connection to the past. The vine, as it will “grow close upon” the
bones of the bullocky and grasp them in its “rooted hand”, is literally holding onto history. The present
inherits the bullocky’s anxieties; his fate is doomed to be theirs. “Bullocky” thus makes clear that the
productivity of the new age is based on a past that was not entirely moral and unproblematic
– rather a history in which Salter’s “European consciousness” imposed itself on the Australian
landscape and the indigenous people. New endeavours cannot escape the ghosts of the past.
Longing to Belong: Judith Wright’s Poetics of Place
By Jenny Kohn

"Bullocky" is one of the poems which celebrates the courage and endurance of the European
pioneers. This composition is based on an actual person, Jack Purkiss, a bullock-driver who
 Reflections on Bullocky

had worked for the Wrights. The poet evokes the past pioneering days and gives those
arduous expeditions a remoteness and a sense of adventure that transforms them into
legendary events.

As the poem unfolds itself, we realize that it narrates the progressive insanity of a pioneer
brought about by years of suffering and deprivation. Grief purifies the vision of the bullock-
driver to the point of a kind of religious delusion which makes him see himself as a Moses
leading the Children of Israel into the Promised Land:

Beside his heavy-shouldered team,

By identifying the bullock-driver with the prophet Moses, Judith Wright endows this figure
with a mythical significance which renders him timeless and part of the Australian heritage.
And, in doing so, the whole poem becomes a tribute to those whose suffering helped to make
Australia fruitful:

O vine, grow closer upon that bone

In "Bullocky," Judith Wright raises an aspect of Australia's past to the level of myth thereby
contributing to a sense of tradition the poet feels is so important for the development of an
Australian identity, a task to which she is fully committed.

However, the European pioneers were not the only people whose sufferings helped to fertilize
the land for a future vintage. Significantly, Judith Wright incorporates the Aborigines into her
poetry as a very important part of Australia's cultural heritage. She believes that by simply
ignoring the fate of the natives, white Australians will never be able to rid themselves of an
uneasy sense of guilt for what they did to the former inhabitants of Australia. However
reprehensible the actions against them might have been, the very fact of recognising and
regretting these actions opens a door to a new understanding of and respect for Aboriginal
custom and ways of life. Besides, as Judith Wright is deeply concerned about environmental
issues, she sees the Aborigines' reverence for the natural world as an example to be followed.
Thus, Judith Wright's purpose in reintroducing the Aborigines into the mind of Australians is
not so much to recall the violence of the European takeover but to make white Australians
realize that the natives are human beings who deserve respect and humane treatment and who
may help us find new and more intimate ways of relating ourselves to the physical world. As
has already been suggested and as the poet herself confirms, Judith Wright also wants to
alleviate a feeling of guilt for what her people did to the former inhabitants of Australia:
 Reflections on Bullocky

I have, I suppose, been trying to expiate a deep sense of guilt over what we have done to the
country, to its first inhabitants of all kinds, and are still and increasingly doing. (Wright 1975:
172)
THE POETRY OF JUDITH WRIGHT: INVENTING AUSTRALIA, INVENTING THE SELF
By Nela BUREU Universidad de Lleida

Task

1. Decide on the core themes of ‘Bullocky’. What do you think are the major concerns Wright
deal with here?

2. Now, using the eight quotes above, write your own sentences of interpretation about
‘Bullocky’, as modelled in italics, ensuring you link all of your analysis to one of the themes
you have identified.

3. Write an introduction to ‘Bullocky’, which you would use to start off your IOC. Be sure to
incorporate Wright’s context of composition (only what is relevant to this poem), the
appropriate key themes she kept exploring in her poetry which are relevant to ‘Bullocky’, and
a short overview of what the poem is about. Your time limit is 45 seconds so you must be
concise and highly selective about what to include. Distil your thinking down to the essentials.