The Human Experience in Bruce Dawe's Poetry Anonymous 11th Grade

A poet who energetically contemplated the world around him, Dawe wasn't just a devoted Australian wordsmith with a dream that his work would one day be analysed. He was a book full of ideas, complex ideas, often about the essence of life and beyond. Through his poems Bedroom Conversations, Up The Wall, and Enter Without So Much As Knocking, Dawe presents his intricate view of the human experience in an interesting light, one that illuminates both the paradoxes and the cynicism of our world.

Bruce Dawe explores the human experience as a paradoxical cycle that is heavily dependent on the cynical nature of society. Although this nature brings society together through consumerism and materialism, it simultaneously tears them apart. Disjointed and disconnected relationships are formed due to the inability, or unwillingness rather, to completely empathise with differing worldviews. These severed relationships create a strong sense of un-fulfilment, leaving individuals with a longing for 'something more'; desires to 'complete' their world. However, society's cynical nature ensures these desires are unreached, leaving only chaos behind.

Throughout Bedroom Conversations and Enter Without So Much As Knocking, Dawe explores the human...