By Bruce Dawe

"Bones, she was diced-bones rolled on black." The Raped Girl's Father is a disturbing poem about a girl who is "unluckily" raped, and how this brings incredible anger and shame to her father. Written by Bruce Dawe, it contains an inept use of thought, feeling and language. It is an absorbing evocation of the girl's feelings and her horrendous suffering, and how her identity has changed as a consequence of the rape -for herself, her father and society.

In the first two lines, an aural image is employed to indicate a never-ending anger in the girl's father. Dawe uses onomatopoeia to create a disturbing and upsetting description of his enraged "buzz-saw whine." An annoying, upsetting sound, it gives the impression of lasting ceaselessly. His anger "rose /murderously in his throat." Because "murderously" begins on a new line, a greater emphasis is...