Robert Gray Poem Analysis According to
Rubric
Journey: The North Coast
In Journey: The North Coast, the persona gradually rediscovers the familiar landscape of the
northern New South Wales coast. This process, in turn, leads to a confronting and powerful
rediscovery of previously-held values and perceptions. Gray plants the concept of inner
transformation from the very first sentence: “Next thing, I wake up in a swaying bunk”. Here, the
unnatural starting preposition of “next” creates a fast-paced atmosphere, foreshadowing the
persona’s own transformative movement and growth throughout the poem. His “swaying bunk”
further conveys uneasy movement, and how the speaker is powerless in his journey as he propels
controllably towards his destination. Here, Gray reflects here his uneasy feelings about moving out at
a young age, and living off the land in north coast Queensland towns. The speaker then re-evaluates
his perceptions of natural life as he looks out his train window and rediscovers the ‘bright crockery
day from so much I recall’. The peculiar use of the noun “crockery” as an adjective emphasizes his
newfound nostalgia for his home.
Furthermore, the extensive use of light and colour imagery in the
“red banks” and “flakes of light”; as well as the allusion to Marcel Duchamp’s (1912 cubist, futurist
painting) ‘Nude Descending a Staircase’, altogether depict a stop-motion-like image of the landscape
as opposed to the train, representing the persona’s shift away from a materialist outlook on life.
Following Marcel Duchamp’s surrealist image, the persona’s world becomes increasingly fractured
and disturbed as he realizes he craves more than a static, picturesque memory of the landscape. This
occurs in the line “and now the country bursts open on the sea”, where the immediacy of the
journey increases once again though the proposition “now”. This time, the rapid succession
contributes to the persona’s state of ecstasy. His elation also climaxes due to the unlikely
combination of manmade and natural as the light “makes the compartment whirl”, “shuttering
shadows”. The renewed perception of the persona’ self as a result of ecstasy is represented through
the line “I rise to the mirror rested”, suggesting that the effect of the discoveries in the poem has an
impact on the individual, but also through reading the poem, we come to the realization that nature,
solitude and reflection may be a necessary restorative process for the people in our culture. The
poem ends in an effort to exert order and control with the speaker methodically packing his things,
returning to the comparatively ordered and bland memory of his “twelve months… in a furnished
room”. This response, whilst seemingly a desire to retreat from discoveries made, actually an
acceptance of natural life by ‘packing away’ his city self as he ‘stows[s] the book and wash-bag/ and
city clothes.” Thus, the speaker and, by extension, the responder comes to understand that our past
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- One '14
- Port Jackson, Robert Gray
