Composition

In this part of the study guide, we will give an overview of the poem’s inner and outer composition, looking at external structure and content. …

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Outer composition

The poem “This Land” by Ian Mudie is comprised of six stanzas written in free verse (the stanzas have no end rhyme). The first four stanzas are three lines long, while the last two are six and seven lines long. This structure suggests that the poet amplifies and expands his message in the last two stanzas.

The poem does not have fixed rhyme and rhythm patterns, but the writer creates musicality and a natural rhythm through repetitions and enumerations. Each stanza begins with “…

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Inner composition

In the inner composition of the poem, each of the first five stanzas conveys different images, which are summarised in the last one.

The title of the poem, “This Land”, suggests that the text is going to be about nature and landscape. In the context of the poem, we find out that the title refers to the Australian continent, where the poet lived.

The first stanza conveys the image of a barren land with brown hills, from which the speaker wants to extract music, and mud bricks that become a metaphor for th…