planning a time capsule

Planning A Time Capsule
Bruce Dawe

As typical of these times I would include: a dirty needle and a rip-top can, pebbled glass from a windscreen, some spent cartridges, a singlet noose fresh from a prisoner’s neck, a pamphlet proving pornography is love, a flask of tears from battered women (laced with children’s blood), a cassette-tape of cries from bitter tenants faced with rent-hikes, a food-voucher for the many hidden hungry, a door key to signify the homeless, and a colour-shot of a billion-dollar Parliament House, a press release from the Bureau of Statistics showing things are getting better all the time
-and for their rarity I would include: a bottle of sand from an undeveloped foreshore, a whole spadeful of earth that’s still Australian, a fern-frond from the last rain-forest, and a feather from a free-range hen, a breath of uncontaminated ozone, and a drop (a single drop) of water as pure as grief. . .

Consider…
What is a time capsule?
What does Bruce Dawe think of the times in which he lives? What does he value and what does he detest?
Isolate and comment on two images Dawe uses. Be sure to explain the impact of these images on you. Consider how these images make you feel.
With what changes in behaviour does this poem deal?
Comment on the use of contrast in this poem.
Why is ‘grief’ mentioned with water? What is the poet saying about changes in our world?
Is it right for a poet to make comments on society like this? Should the poet provide solutions for the problems he isolates?

Write a response to the following question:
How does the use of the distinctively visual emphasise the ways that individuals respond to the world around them?