My People

New syllabus (first HSC 2027). This text is prescribed for the 2027 to 2030 HSC under the English Standard 11-12 (2024) syllabus (focus area: Close study of literature). Oodgeroo's poetry was also on the 2019 to 2026 Standard list (Module B, from a selection in the 2017 syllabus), and My People itself (Wiley 2008) was on the EAL/D list (Module A: Texts and Human Experiences) with a different selection. Of the seven Standard poems then, only The Past and Reed Flute Cave are set again, so check older notes against the seven poems below. Sitting the 2026 HSC? See the 2019 to 2026 text list.

A note on the poet and on respect

Oodgeroo of the Noonuccal people, who published early work under the name Kath Walker, was a poet, writer, educator and activist. She was born in 1920 on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island) in Queensland and died in 1993. Her first book of poems, We Are Going (1964), is widely recognised as the first published book of verse by an Aboriginal Australian. She later took the name Oodgeroo Noonuccal, and many editions of her work now use it. Use that name in your essays unless a question uses another, and never shorten her name or treat her work as simply a record of one community's feelings. She was a public figure who used poetry, speeches and political action to push for change.

NESA sets Oodgeroo Noonuccal, My People (Wiley, 2020, ISBN 9780730391081). My People has appeared in several editions, so use this one and the seven set poems.

Why this text suits Close study of literature

Close study asks you to show how language and form make meaning. Oodgeroo's poems are direct, rhythmic and often performed aloud. Do not mistake directness for simplicity. They use address, contrast, repetition, irony and compact imagery to make their arguments about justice, belonging and history. A strong response treats each poem as a crafted public statement and explains how the craft produces its power.

Characteristic methods

Use these as lenses and test them on the seven set poems.

• Direct address and the collective voice. Many poems speak to a reader, to a group or to the nation. Identify who is being addressed, who is speaking for whom, and how the shifting pronouns (I, we, you, they) shape the relationship with the reader.
• Contrast and irony. Poems often set one world against another, such as the original custodians' knowledge of land against settler indifference, or the language of law against lived experience. Name the contrast and say how it exposes injustice.
• Plain, strong diction and rhythm. The language is accessible and the beat is often steady and insistent, close to speech or chant. Explain how rhythm and repetition build urgency and invite agreement.
• Imagery of Country and change. Natural and cultural imagery carries a sense of loss, continuity and the damage caused by dispossession. Trace how a small number of images develop across a poem.
• Structure as argument. Look at how poems move from description to challenge to a closing turn, often a call, warning or statement of hope.

The set poems

NESA sets seven poems: Corroboree, Ballad of Totems, No More Boomerang, Son of Mine, We Are Going, The Past and Reed Flute Cave. Anchor your essay to these.

Some ways in, to be checked against the Wiley edition. We Are Going and No More Boomerang look at what has been lost or is disappearing, so test them for elegy, contrast and the voice that speaks on behalf of others. Ballad of Totems is built on the ballad form and its title points to totems and kinship, so ask what the borrowed form does to the subject. Son of Mine is addressed to a child, so ask what the speaker owes the next generation and how the address shapes tone. The titles of Corroboree and The Past point to ceremony and to history, so ask how each poem holds past and present together. Reed Flute Cave takes the poet beyond Australia, which makes it a useful test of how her voice and concerns travel. Describe what each poem does in your own words from the text in front of you.

Reading a poem closely

1. Situation. Who is speaking and to whom? What historical or social situation does the poem respond to?
2. Central claim. What is the poem asking the reader to see or do?
3. Techniques. Choose three or four that clearly carry the meaning (for example repetition, contrast, imagery, direct address) and note where they appear.
4. Shape. How does the poem begin, develop and end, and what changes in tone?
5. Effect. How does the poem position the reader, and what values does it assert?

When you write, use short quotations taken directly from your set text rather than from memory. This page deliberately does not reproduce her poems.

Context as a driver of argument

Oodgeroo wrote in the period around the 1967 referendum and the wider Aboriginal rights movement, when poetry was one way of speaking to a national audience that had not been listening. Use context to explain why a poem takes the stance it does, not as an add-on. For example, you can argue that the poems' public, almost oratorical voice is a response to being denied a place in public debate. Make such claims carefully and tie them to textual features.

Common pitfalls

• Treating the poems as raw feeling or history lessons. They are crafted literature, and the question is about how they work.
• Writing about Aboriginal people as a single group with one view. Speak about the poet and the poems, and be specific.
• Using inaccurate or careless language about the poet, culture or history. Check names, places and dates, and use respectful terms.
• Paraphrasing instead of analysing. Always connect technique to effect.

Essay scaffold

Introduction. Answer the question directly. State a thesis about how Oodgeroo uses voice, contrast and rhythm to challenge injustice and affirm Aboriginal identity and survival.

Body 1. Voice and address in We Are Going: the speaker, the audience and the effect of pronouns and repetition.

Body 2. Contrast and imagery in No More Boomerang: what has been replaced, and how the poem exposes dispossession.

Body 3. Address and the future in Son of Mine, with Corroboree or The Past as a counterpoint: how the closing movement shapes the reader's response.

Conclusion. Return to the claim that these poems protest and affirm at once: We Are Going mourns without conceding, and Son of Mine hands the argument to the next generation. Say which poem gives the strongest evidence that her public voice treats survival as a fact, not a hope.

Read the text

My People is in copyright. Borrow it from your school or a public library, or buy it from a bookseller. Use the Wiley edition NESA sets (2020, ISBN 9780730391081) for page and line references.

Sources

• NESA, HSC English prescriptions (checked 7 October 2026, year 2026).
• NESA, English Standard Year 12 content pages: page 1, page 2 (prescription lists, checked 7 October 2026).