Characters and narrator

The poem “This Land” by Ian Mudie features a single character - the narrator or the speaker - who reflects on the Australian land.

The narrator

The speaker can be seen as a lyrical persona of the poet. Like the poet, the speaker is fascinated with words (symbolic of poetry) and lives in Australia with a deep appreciation of the country’s landscape.

The poem can be interpreted as an ode to the Australian land, which is characterised by a harsh, yet beautiful landscape.

The way the speaker describes it suggests that he is impressed and fascinated by this land which uncovers beauty and music from harshness, and that he feels a deep affinity with it:

Give me a harsh land to wring music from,
brown hills, and dust, with dead grass
straw to my bricks. (ll. 1-3)

The “bricks” are...