Chan+Martin

I'm Chan Martin and I am working with Janan Cheong and Daryl Ong. - __**Similes In Sydney**__ In the morning, we circled the Opera House In the safety of the procession of tourists Queuing for a view of the gilded chambers Imagining songs with ungraspable words. Faceless, predictable - we tilted our cameras The same angle as the rest ; one long shot, Then a close-up of the magnificent wedges… Later, an early dinner in Chinatown, before Crossing the intersection to get the theater In time for Miss Saigon, when an Aussie Woman asked if we were Vietnamese and Upon receiving a "no" for the answer claimed She couldn’t tell us apart from any other With Asian glaze and all-else ochre. **Yong Shu Hoong**

**Title**: Similes in Sydney


 * Composer/Writer**: Yong Shu Hoong
 * Year Published**:
 * Text Type**: Poem

The poem “Similes in Sydney” is written by Yong Shu Hoong, an award-winning Singaporean poet and literary advocate. This poem tells us about a family who is in Sydney and they are having a tour around the city. “In the morning, we circled the Opera House” means that walking around the Sydney Opera House and looking at its magnificent structure for the first time. “Imagining songs with ungraspable words” means that the building looks so amazing that a song is describing the Opera House with indescribable words. “we tilted our cameras, the same angle as the rest ; one long shot” means that the tourist are taking pictures at the same angle and at the same thing. This shows that Asians have many things in common. The text shows that the Australians can’t differentiate where the Asian tourists come from because they look almost the same.

_

__**Migrant Women on a Melbourne Tram**__

Impossibly black Amid the impudence of summer thighs Long arms and painted toenails And the voices Impossibly obscure She hunches sweltering Twists in sweating hands A scrap of paper – address, destination, Clue to the labyrinth Where voices not understood Echo Confusing directions. (There was a time They sent them out of Greece In black-sailed ships To feed the minotaur. <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Whose is the blind beast now <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Laired in Collingwood, <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Abbotsford, Richmond, <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Eating up men?) <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Street-names in the glare <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Leap ungraspably from sight <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Formless collisions of letters <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Impossibly dark <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">She is forlorn in foreign words and voices, <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Remembering a village <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Where poverty was white as bone <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">And the great silences of sea and sky <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Parted at dusk for voices coming home <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Calling names <span style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 10pt; margin: 0in; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">Impossibly departed.

__Jennifer Strauss__

**Title:** Migrant Woman on a Melbourne Tram **Composer:** Jennifer Strauss **Year Published:** **Text Type:** Poem

The poem “Migrant Women on a Melbourne Tram” is written by Jennifer Strauss, who is a Melbourne poet who works at Monash University.The poem tells us about a black migrant woman that is on a bus in Melbourne and who is unfamiliar with Australia.

The woman had long arms and painted toenails from the sentence “long arms and painted toenails”, and the speaker is being sarcastic about how women are on the bus showing their thighs by wearing clothes that expose them. “Clue to the labyrinth” means that she has no idea of the streets of Melbourne and they are like a maze to her. “Where voices not understood, Echo” means that the people giving her directions but she doesn’t seem to understand their language and she always hears them as echoes. “They sent them out of Greece, In black-sailed ships, To feed the minotaur” means sending black people, like the black women, out of Greece on ships to feed a beast is probably something the speaker read in a text book in college, and the poet added this to show her feminist support. The repetition of the word “impossibly” implies the notion that this whole “journey” on the bus in a sense that it is impossible for her.

The text shows that the woman is a visitor to Australia and she is unfamiliar to the streets and language of the country.

Chan,
 * You have analysed the literary devices closely
 * You have provided evidence and discussed the intended effects on the reader
 * Please discuss the interpretations/representations of Australia in a broader sense
 * You need to provide more detail please and write more than what you have completed

Great!