Judith A. Wright
Judith Wright was probably Australia's greatest poet; she was also an ardent conservationist and activist. She died in 2000, at the age of 85.
Over a long and distinguished literary career, she published poetry, children's books, literary essays, biographies, histories and other works of non-fiction.
Her commitment to the Great Barrier Reef began in 1962, when she helped found the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland. She went on to become a member of the Committee of Enquiry into the National Estate and life member of the Australian Conservation Foundation.
Judith Wright worked tirelessly to promote land rights for Aboriginal people and to raise awareness among non-Aboriginal Australians of their plight arising from the legacy of European settlement. She has written The Cry for the Dead (1981), We Call for a Treaty (1985) and Born of the Conquerors (1991).
Judith Wright was awarded many honours for her writing, including the Grace Leven Award (twice), the New South Wales Premier's Prize, the Encyclopedia Britannica Prize for Literature, and the ASAN World Prize for Poetry. She has received honorary degrees (D.Litt.) from the Universities of New England, Sydney Monash, Melbourne, Griffith and New South Wales and the Australian National University. In 1994 she received the Human Rights Commission Award for Collected Poems.
“Naked Girl and MirrorThis is not I. I had no body once-only what served my need to laugh and runand stare at stars and tentatively danceon the fringe of foam and wave and sand and sun.Eyes loved, hands reached for me, but I was goneon my own currents, quicksilver, thistledown.Can I be trapped at last in that soft face?I stare at you in fear, dark brimming eyes.Why do you watch me with that immoderate plea-'Look under these curled lashes, recognizethat you were always here; know me-be me.'Smooth once-hermaphrodite shoulders, too tenderlyyour long slope runs, above those sudden shycurves furred with light that spring below your space.No, I have been betrayed. If I had knownthat this girl waited between a year and a year,I'd not have chosen her bough to dance upon.Betrayed, by that little darkness here, and herethis swelling softness and that frightened starefrom eyes I will not answer; shut out herefrom my own self, by its new body's grace-for I am betrayed by someone lovely. Yes,I see you are lovely, hateful naked girl.Your lips in the mirror tremble as I refuseto know or claim you. Let me go-let me be gone.You are half of some other who may never come.Why should I tend you? You are not my own;you seek that other-he will be your home.Yet I pity your eyes in the mirror, misted with tears;I lean to your kiss. I must serve you; I will obey.Some day we may love. I may miss your going, some day,though I shall always resent your dumb and fruitful years.Your lovers shall learn better, and bitterly too,if their arrogance dares to think I am part of you.”