Role of Protest Poetry

Protest Poetry Essay

The power of protest poetry is its ability to appeal to, and even influence the emotions of humans through the narration of people’s experiences. It is able to bring the attention of an audience to the faults of humanity and crimes it has committed. It also allows the composer to express their opinions on a controversial issue and aim it at a specific audience. Its ability to appeal to human emotions has been proven with Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” and Archie Roach’s “Took the Children Away” which both retell the experiences of someone who has gone through a traumatic incident.

Both authors make use of colloquial language to create a powerful realism that the audience can relate to. Representing an experience of a certain group is a feature which protest poetry has the ability to achieve, by doing so it allows people to express themselves. Protest poetry is able to raise awareness of these events that the victims have gone through and the issues that have been formed because of it. The ability to elicit a response from the audience is another of the feature of protest poetry.

Due to society’s ignorance and attitude of disdain directed at the western country’s involvement in the Vietnam War, many Vietnam War Veterans suffered from the wrongfully directed hatred. The televised battle of Khe Sanh, did not aid the public’s attitudes of entering the Vietnam War. Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” narrates a Vietnam War Veteran’s struggle to be acknowledged as a person upon his return to Australia. It explores the deep sadness and confusion he experiences and his inability to block out the horrors of war, which is made worse by his lack of social acceptance. Again, this ignorance and lack of understanding is seen in Roach’s “Took the Children Away”.

The Australian Government’s choice to force Aboriginal children out of their family and to assimilate to the “white ways” caused a lot of anger and criticism. Similar to Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh”, the traumatic experiences of Archie Roach represented in “Took the Children Away” as a child, shows his tone of bitterness and intense feelings of anger and sadness to the white government. His separation from his family early on in his life left him traumatised and in pain, leading him to abuse alcohol to ease his pain. Like many Aboriginal children (but not all) from that time, he was able to find joy with being reunited with his family and culture.

Protest poetry represents people’s experiences and allows them to express themselves. The persona in Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” is constantly searching for meaning in his life and has an inability to deal with the emotional pain after leaving the Vietnam War. Through the use of symbolism in “I left my heart to the sappers in Khe Sanh” and “I sold my soul with my cigarettes the blackmarket man” Cold Chisel indicates that the persona has a deep feeling of guilt in participating in Khe Sanh and he openly admits this through these lines. The sense of truth rings true and the audience is able to understand the persona’s expression of himself.

Roach is able to recount his experience of being torn apart from his family and then, reuniting with them. Roach’s tone in the repetition “Took the children away” reinforces his feelings of anger and sadness about the white government’s actions of dislocating the Aboriginal families and ignoring their feelings. His continuous use of “Took the children away” creates a response of anger, humiliation and dismay towards the white government. He experiences a traumatic time – “Breaking their mother’s heart, tearing us all apart” shows the intensity of his pain.

His change of tone from anger to joy and contentment is clearly seen in “One sweet day all the children came back”. Roach’s realistic writing appealed to many Australian people, contributing to a movement that lead to an apology to the Indigenous people. By changing his tone from anger and sadness to joy and contentment, Roach is able to express himself. By representing people’s experiences and allowing them to express themselves, protest poetry is able to raise awareness of these experiences.

Protest poetry is able to raise awareness of the experiences of victims. The personas’ feelings of confusion and being lost is able to be represented by Roach and Cold Chisel. Cold Chisel’s use of contrast in “I’m goin’ nowhere and I’m in a hurry” reinforces the persona’s feelings of confusion. He is continually drifting in life looking for meaning which is currently missing from his life. This is able to make the audience feel empathetic of the persona and is very effective at raising awareness of issues portrayed by Roach and Cold Chisel.

Again, these feelings of confusion and being lost are found in Archie Roach’s “Took the Children Away”. “Cause we were acting white, yet feeling black” use of juxtaposition demonstrates how the persona is stuck in between two worlds. His loss of his culture and meaning and his gain of the white man ways causes him to fall into an identity crisis. Roach’s tone of bitterness and feelings of anguish continuously reminds the audience of the pain and agony that Roach had to experience with the separation from his family and culture. Due to these feelings that both personas experience they resort to physical objects to ease the pain.

Protest poetry elicits a response from the audience by representing the personas’ desperation to adopt physical objects to ease their emotional pain. The persona in Cold Chisel’s “Khe Sanh” continuously goes through emotional pain as he searches for meaning in his life. He chooses to block out this pain with sex and drugs, this is established with the use of  “I never stopped the dreams or the growing need for speed and novacaine” and “I’m gonna hit some Hong Kong mattress all night long”. Cold Chisel creates a feeling of sympathy for the desperation of the persona as he resorts to sex and drugs to find pleasure in his life and to block out the past which has caused him pain.

Roach’s tone of bitterness and hatred, and eventually joy, continually effects the emotions of the audience. With the use of in “And gave us gifts to ease the pain” shows how the government is ignorant and attempts to regain the trust of the Aboriginal children by giving them gifts. By comparing the actions of the government by tearing apart Aboriginal families to gifts makes the audience feel astonished that the government would even think of it.

Appealing and affecting the emotions of humans shows the power of protest poetry, something that both “Khe Sanh” and “Took the Children Away” are able to achieve. The composer’s intention to make the audience more aware of an issue in the hope of change is very important. By expressing the truth of these issues anecdotally through poems it is able to reach out and appeal to a large audience. By representing an experience of someone, protest poetry allows a person to express themselves. Raising awareness of the experiences of this person can bring attention to issues that require a change. Eliciting a response from the audience can contribute to a change in attitude with the whole of society.