The Snow-Gum

Focus questions: How does Stewart communicate his vision in the language of this poem? What spiritual vision you could detect in the poem and why is it Australian? Examples
Techniques
Ideas of Australian visions
‘The Snow Gum’
Title and the use of definite article ‘the’
Indicate that Snow Gum – a very special tree in the Australian psyche (soul, spirit, essence) It is the snow-gum silently, the silvery
In moon’s blue

Colour imagery
Feminine rhyme
Evoke gentleness of the snow gum’s being and appearance
Flowering of light on snow
Visual imagery
In “flowering” and the very sound of ‘light’, Stewart elaborates – the snow gum as something exquisitely beautiful and ethereal -at the same time uniquely Australian
Performing its slow miracle
Here upon drift and icicle
rhyming words
Suggesting Gum’s reality – this is miraculous as it occurs, mirror like, At shadowless moon.
The creamy truck’s solidity/The full-grown curve of the crown Creamy, curve, crown
alliteration
Stewart emphasises the smallness and largeness of nature as embodied in this Australian tree Simile
in clear reflection Like flakes of soft grey stone
Physical details suggest independent uniqueness of the tree
Repetition
Out of the granite’s eternity, Out of the winter’s long enmity, Oppositeness
of the Australian landscape
Religious symbolism/imagery

Ecstasy and miracle
The perception of the Snow Gum takes us beyond our ordinary perception of the physical world – the divine intervention Noun & Verb
The full-grown curve of the crown

Curves to its perfect shadow
The tree stands majestically in the ladscape
The gum tree creates its own perfect shadow –suggesting prefect creation of the Australian landscape through divine intervention.

The Snow-Gum
The Snow-Gum
Focus questions: How does Stewart communicate his vision in the language of this poem? What spiritual vision you could detect in the poem and why is it Australian? Examples Techniques
Ideas of Australian visions
‘The Snow Gum’
Title and the use of definite article ‘the’
Indicate that Snow Gum – a very special tree in the Australian psyche (soul, spirit, essence) It is the snow-gum silently, the silvery
In moon’s blue
Colour imagery
Feminine rhyme
Evoke gentleness of the snow gum’s being and appearance
Flowering of light on snow
Visual imagery
In “flowering” and the very sound of ‘light’, Stewart elaborates – the snow gum as something exquisitely beautiful and ethereal -at the same time uniquely Australian
Performing its slow miracle
Here upon drift and icicle
rhyming words
Suggesting Gum’s reality – this is miraculous as it occurs, mirror like, At shadowless moon.
The creamy truck’s solidity/The full-grown curve of the crown Creamy, curve, crown
alliteration
Stewart emphasises the smallness and largeness of nature as embodied in this Australian tree Simile
in clear reflection Like flakes of soft grey stone
Physical details suggest independent uniqueness of the tree Repetition
Out of the granite’s eternity, Out of the winter’s long enmity, Oppositeness of the Australian landscape
Religious symbolism/imagery
Ecstasy and miracle
The perception of the Snow Gum takes us beyond our ordinary perception of the physical world – the divine intervention Noun & Verb
The full-grown curve of the crown
Curves to its perfect shadow
The tree stands majestically in the ladscape
The gum tree creates its own perfect shadow –suggesting prefect creation of the Australian landscape through divine intervention