The poem Municipal Gum by Oodgeroo Noonuccal, written in 1960, is about a gumtree, out of place “in the city street”, representing the same dislocation felt by Australia’s indigenous population post European settlement. Noonuccal uses the technique of metaphors as well as an irregular rhyme scheme and meter to convey the “hopelessness” and trapped feeling experienced by the indigenous Australians.
Probably the most noteworthy use of metaphor in this poem is when Noonuccal uses a simile to compare a “poor cart-horse” to the gumtree trapped, “strapped and buckled” in the city street, in turn, directly referring to her people. The analogy comparing the tree of the poem to the indigenous peoples is further expressed through the lines “whose hung
