Summary Of Broken Teeth By Tony Birch

In his collection of poems Broken Teeth, author Tony Birch explores Melbourne’s past from British Settlement to the present day. Within his poems “‘My Words’, Beruk (Ngamajet) -1835”, “Beruk Watches Melbourne from the Sky -1945” and “Visiting”, Birch creates a connected image of the city’s past through exploring snapshots of different time periods within Melbourne’s rich, diverse history. Birch’s poems also identify the strong links between the city’s past and its present, reviving the strong historical and cultural factors that influenced Melbourne’s creation.

Tony Birch’s Poem “‘My Words’, Breuk (Ngamajet)- 1835”, depicts the history of the colonisation of Melbourne, as told through the eyes of prominent Indigenous leader William Barak

Birch describes a “darkened” (5) Melbourne, that despite not being “a bombsite”(1), is still “a city of cold light and benign shadows” (4-5), displaying the negative history associated with the city. In his poem, Birch examines that although Melbourne was not “among the rubble” (3) post World War II, it shared a similar pattern of destruction in the form of the devastation brought upon the Indigenous population at the time of the British Colonization. This concept links Burton Pike text The Image of the City in Modern Literature, in which Pike claims every city in the world has its own “individual history” (3), however cities “all seem to exemplify similar patterns” (3). This identifies that the formation of a city follows a general historical structure, and can be seen through Birch’s comparison of Europe’s involvement in WWII with the Colonization of Australia. Further to this, Pike also states that literature about metropolitan areas focuses on “the interpenetration of past and present” (4), showing that it often uniquely combines both the past and the present day to display the energy of the city. Both of these concepts are explored in “Beruk Watches Melbourne from the Sky” as Birch presents the ghostly figure of WIlliam Barrack wandering through the “tombstone towers” of Melbourne (5). In the same way that Birch

Despite displaying Melbourne as being “a sludge of shifting grey” (6) after the War, the city was actually seen as a centre for celebration. On Friday the 17th of August 1945, The Argus, a Melbourne based newspaper, reported on the city’s reaction to the news that Japan had surrendered in WWII the previous day. Titled, “Peace Hailed with Outburst of joy in Melbourne”, the article describes the bursting energy that filled Melbourne city. Stating “the city went wild with a ecstasy of joy within a few minutes of hearing the news” (4), the article shows that Melbourne was a place for people to come in celebration and peace at the end of the War. This is in high contrast to the dark and sad portrayal of Melbourne by Birch, however by manipulating the history, Birch presents a different aspect of Melbourne’s past, and also explores memories of a negative history are able to permeate positive