Poem Analysis: Haunted Landscapes

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The field on the corner of our road blew with unmown grass, pale yellow in the midst of summer. It greeted you as you drove up the road, into the suburb with old weatherboard houses converted to shops. On windy days, the grass billowed across the field in mesmerizing patterns, creating a spectacle for those walking past. Sometimes there were black cows scattered amongst it. It sat next to the creek with old gum trees leaning over; a lovely patch of countryside. Five years ago, they dug up the field to build a block of houses. The field became precise lines of concrete and trees planted in straight rows. The houses were made of brick and were placed with no regard for privacy. The drive into the suburb is changed, now the ideal suburban aesthetic …show more content…

They write: ‘Forgetting in itself, remakes landscapes [...] Yet ghosts remind us. Ghosts point to our forgetting.’ (Gan et al. 2017, pg G6) It is vital that we do not forget what our landscapes looked before we changed them. A fitting description of this comes from Hayne and Webb who present the idea in their exhibition, 'Traces and Hauntings’. Our lives are somewhat marked by present and future, but also experiences from the past, using the term ‘traces’ and ‘hauntings’. They list memory as an example of traces, describing them as a fleeting thing: often of things we have once known or used, possibly to a great extent, but have now lost forever. (Hayne and Webb, …show more content…

The window, a semi-circular shape with wide panels, sits at eye height and lights up the room. For those who move around the building regularly may glance out of the windows and wonder what the view may have been like. The hotel is regarded bitterly by users of the art school; locals have no use for it. We who didn’t know the art school building before development can only imagine what the view could have been like; a first-hand experience of our natural places disappearing under tourist

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