Poem Review of My Generation by Omar Musa

My Generation
Omar Musa
In Omar Musa’s poem ‘My Generation’, the poet reviews several contemporary problems in order to assess the morally bankrupt nature of specific parts of modern day Australia.
Omar Musa explores the sense of entitlement that many young people feel. He expresses this well in his poem through the use of many poetic techniques. Omar uses a metaphor in the opening stanza, “My generation sat on the brim of the ocean waiting, waiting for the tide to bring something in”. This expresses that people are not getting involved in their life and aren’t willing to go looking to get the best in life, instead they are waiting for other people to do it for them. The metaphor “prime ministers slain” expresses the poet’s anger at politicians who make big promises to get elected and then do nothing when they get into power.
Another point Omar Musa raises is the obsession with image and the superficial fixation on image, he focuses on the people that live in this type of world and how they are self-indulgent. . He mentions how our generation is so focused on having the perfect body image that for many of us this is what we wish and hope for but in reality we have set the standards way to high and are setting ourselves up for disappointment and failure. As each generation passes by, are getting more superficial. Through the use of metaphors and similes Omar is able to convey this message throughout the whole poem. “I mean the ones who live in debt buy spray cans of fake tan” this accentuates the superficial part of the generation.
Omar Musa says that we don’t really know what is going on in parliament, and he explains in deeper meaning what sex is today in the eyes of his generation. “We made auto tuned love and men learnt how to have sex on a curriculum of pixelated pink porn star pussy and double D tits and digital dicks.” This demonstrates that this generation doesn’t have a proper image of real sex, that they are expecting much more as Omar Musa says “pixelated pink porn star pussy and double D tits and digital dicks” Omar Musa uses strong language techniques such as alliteration here to add effect and make it more interesting. This shows the reality of today’s generation.