Title: Immigrants at Central Station
Composer: Peter Skrzynecki
Source: Poem
Date: 1975
The poem composed by Australian poet Peter Skrzynecki, Immigrants at Central Station, explores the various journeys of a family who arrives in Sydney from a migrant camp during 1951. Throughout the poem, a combination of sensory and visual imagery recreate the scene Skrzynecki’s family undertook during their immigration to Australia, describing their emotions and current environment. The purpose of this poem was to portray the mental challenges of immigrants back in 1951 and the challenges that would impose each of them personally as well as time and one’s future.
This poem firmly supports the generalisation of a physical journey leading to unexpected encounters and destinations. It is most evident with the use of visual imagery in the line ‘Like a guillotine/ Cutting us off from the space of eyesight’ that suggests the intensity and uncertainty of the final destination and expectations of the persona in this poem. Skrynecki uses this line to emphasise on another generalisation of a journey encompassing sudden changes as this line illustrates the swiftness of the alteration of their journey, as well as the use of juxtaposition of that event to that of “along glistening tracks of steel’ symbolising hope and freedom. This creates a powerful effect through the sudden contrast of two intensely different situations.
Immigrants at Central station also portray the notion of inner journeys, more so than physical journeys. The use of alliteration “Dampness that slowly Sank into our thoughts’ renders physical aspects of the environmental into emotional effects, depicting the despair situation of the migrants as they face uncertainty and fear. To enforce this even further, Skrzynecki uses pathetic fallacy to render the surrounding area “All night it had rained”, setting the mood and