Judith Wright’s Fire Sermons

Abstract

ABSTRACT Australian poet Judith Wright has been read for her lyrical presentation of a woman-centred perspective on love, for her expression of guilt over colonial history and her solidarity with Aboriginal writer Oodgeroo Noonuccal, and for her support for environmental causes. Some critics have noted elements of mysticism, connecting them to Western literary traditions, but this article outlines her debts to Hindu, Buddhist and Sufi images and thought, concluding that these are multicultural tools for her to form a poetic that can be defended against claims that she failed to integrate lyric immediacy and philosophical abstraction.