Australian Poetry – Australian Identity

We value the masterpieces of the past, but we also need the news of today. Good poets usually write about their own times; their inspiration comes from here and now. But `here' and 'now' have a way of turning into `over there' and 'back then'. The things that are 'common knowledge' change so fast. Write a satire on today's Prime Minister, and in five years' time it will need footnotes! Poets have been writing poetry for so many centuries that most of the world's great poetry is about things that happened long ago. This is a pity, because, as we all know, nothing spoils a poem, or a joke, like having to explain the point.

That problem is at its worst when you study poetry in school, because when you're in senior high school you probably don't, for instance, remember many world events that are more than ten years old. And you probably haven't visited many of the foreign countries that are mentioned in poems.

To make things worse, Australian students have often been made to concentrate on British rather than Australian poetry. Some people have said that this was because Australian poetry wasn't good enough; but the real reason may have been a 'colonial cringe'-the feeling that everything was better in Britain, the motherland, than in a primitive place like Australia.

Two hundred years is time enough for a lot of things to change... But in Australia even the things that have gone are still part of our recent past. 'The past is another country'-it has also made us what we are.from Two Centuries of Australian Poetry

In the collection of poems that follow you will hear many different Australian voices. These are voices that share experiences that have often influenced ideas about what it means to be Australian. You will also notice that many of the voices are competing, representing very different views. As a young 21st century reader you will be able to lend your own unique perspective to the texts you encounter. You will find many different facets of life represented and hopefully you will be

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inspired to find your own poems that represent your view of what it means to be Australian today.

COLONIAL BUSH BALLADS

Wild Colonial Boy

There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Doolan was his name,Of poor but honest parents he was born in Castlemaine.He was his father's only hope, his mother's only joy,And dearly did his parents love the wild Colonial boy. Chorus: Come, all my hearties, we'll roam the mountains high,Together we will plunder, together we will die.We'll wander over valleys, and gallop over plains,And we'll scorn to live in slavery, bound down with iron chains. He was scarcely sixteen years of age when he left his father's home,And through Australia's sunny clime a bushranger did roam.He robbed those wealthy squatters, their stock he did destroy,And a terror to Australia was the wild Colonial boy. In sixty-one this daring youth commenced his wild career,With a heart that knew no danger, no foeman did he fear.He stuck up the Beechworth mail coach, and robbed Judge MacEvoy,Who trembled and gave up his gold to the wild Colonial boy. He bade the judge 'Good morning', and told him to beware,That he'd never rob a hearty chap that acted on the square,And never to rob a mother of her son and only joy,Or else you may turn outlaw, like the wild Colonial boy. One day as he was riding the mountain-side along,A-listening to the little birds, their pleasant laughing song,Three mounted troopers rode along - Kelly, Davis, and FitzRoy -They thought that they would capture him, the wild Colonial boy. 'Surrender now, Jack Doolan, you see there's three to one.Surrender now, Jack Doolan, you daring highwayman.'He drew a pistol from his belt, and shook the little toy.'I'll fight, but not surrender,' said the wild Colonial boy. He fired at Trooper Kelly and brought him to the ground,And in return from Davis received a mortal wound.All shattered through the jaws he lay still firing at FitzRoy,And that's the way they captured him - the wild Colonial boy.

Waltzing Matilda by A B Paterson 

Oh! there once was a swagman camped in the billabong,Under the shade of a coolibah-tree;

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and he sang as he looked at his old billy boiling,'Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?'

Chorus:         Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda, my darling,                Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?                   Waltzing Matilda and leading a water-bag -                Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Down came a jumbuck to drink at the water-hole,Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him in glee;And he sang as he stowed him away in his tucker-bag,'You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me!'

Down came the squatter a-riding his thoroughbred;Down came policemen - one, two and three.'Whose is the jumbuck you've got in the tuckerbag?You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me'

But the swagman he up and jumped in the water-hole,Drowning himself by the coolibah-tree;And his ghost may be heard as it sings in the billabong,'Who'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me?'

The Dying Stockman – Anonymous

 A strapping young stockman lay dying,His saddle supporting his head;His two mates around him were crying,As he rose on his elbow and said:

        Chorus:  'Wrap me up with my stockwhip and blanket,    And bury me deep down below,                       Where the dingoes and crows can't molest me,               In the shade where the coolibahs grow.

'Oh! had I the flight of the bronzewing,Far o'er the plains would I fly,Straight to the land of my childhood,And there I would lay down and die.

'Then cut down a couple of saplings,Place one at my head and my toe,Carve on them cross, stockwhip, and saddle,To show there's a stockman below.

'Hark! there's the wail of a dingo,Watchful and weird - I must go,For it tolls the death-knell of the stockmanFrom the gloom of the scrub down below.

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'There's tea in the battered old billy;Place the pannikins out in a row,And we'll drink to the next merry meeting,In the place where all good fellows go.

'And oft in the shades of the twilight,When the soft winds are whispering low,And the darkening shadows are falling,Sometimes think of the stockman below.'

CONVICT AUSTRALIA

The Old Prison by Judith Wright

The rows of cells are unroofed,a flute for the wind's mouth,who comes with a breath of icefrom the blue caves of the south.

0 dark and fierce day:the wind like an angry beehunts for the black honeyin the pits of the hollow sea.

Waves of shadow washthe empty shell bone-bare,and like a bone it singsa bitter song of air.

Who built and laboured here?The wind and the sea say-Their cold nest is brokenand they are blown away-

They did not breed nor love.Each in his cell alonecried as the wind now criesthrough this flute of stone

THE SILENCED

The Shearer’s Wife by Louis Esson

Before the glare o’ dawn I rise To milk the sleepy cows, an’ shake The droving dust from tired eyes, Look round the rabbit traps, then bake The children’s bread. There’s hay to stook, an’ beans to hoe, An’ ferns to cut in the scrub below,

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Women must work, when men must go Shearing from shed to shed.

I patch an’ darn, now evening comes, An’ tired I am with labour sore, Tired o’ the bush, the cows, the gums, Tired, but we must dree for long months more What no tongue tells. The moon is lonely in the sky, Lonely the bush, an’ lonely I Stare down the track no horse draws nigh, An’ start . . . at the cattle bells.

ABORIGINAL POETRY

We Are Going by Oodgeroo of the tribe Noonuccal, custodian of the land Minjerribah(formerly Kath Walker)

For Grannie Coolwell

They came in to the little townA semi-naked band subdued and silent,All that remained of their tribe.They came here to the place of their old bora groundWhere now the many white men hurry about like ants.Notice of estate agent reads: `Rubbish May Be Tipped Here'.Now it half covers the traces of the old bora ring.They sit and are confused, they cannot say their thoughts:`We are as strangers here now, but the white tribe are the strangers.We belong here, we are of the old ways.We are the corroboree and the bora ground,We are the old sacred ceremonies, the laws of the elders.We are the wonder tales of Dream Time, the tribal legends told.We are the past, the hunts and the laughing games, the wandering

camp fires.We are the ' lightning bolt over Gaphembah HillQuick and terrible,And the Thunder after him, that loud fellow.We are the quiet daybreak paling the dark lagoon.We are the shadow ghosts creeping back as the camp fires burn low.We are nature and the past, all the old waysGone now and scattered.The scrubs are gone, the hunting and the laughter.The eagle is gone, the emu and the kangaroo are gone from this

place.The bora ring is gone.The corroboree is gone.And we are going.'

Consultation by Kevin Gilbert

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Me, mate?You'll get no views from me!Where did I ever go?Who did I ever meet?What did I ever see?

Nothin' just the old river, the gumtreeThe mission. Me seven kids, four grandkidsBlacks gamblin' drunk, fightin', laughin', cryin'.Mostly gamblin'. Playin' `pups' wild deuces gameDoin’ it, risking their twenty cents to try to win thirtyPrice of bread, you know. You know, life ain’t too bad hereNo runnin' water, no fireplaces, huh, no houses evenJust the kerosene tin and hessian bag humpies.They say there's `welfare ' for blacks these daysBut the mission looks the same to me. Seven I gotAn' another one in the barrel put there by the `manager''Cause his wife cut him short or somethin'Nothin' changes. I don't ever see nothin' muchAn' no-one asked me my view before.

Okay, Let's be Honest by Robert Walker

Okay, let's be honest:I ain 't no saint,but then again,I wasn 't born in heaven,Okay, Okay!So let's be honest:I've been in and out,since the age of eleven.And I've been mean,

hatefuland downright dangerous.

I've lain in my own bloodin hotelsboys' homes,and cop shops.I've cursed my skin:not black, not white.just another non-identity,fighting to be Mr Tops.

Yeah, so I'm called a bastard,an animal, a trouble maker;while my accusers watch my brothers smashed,thrown into dog boxes drunk, crying for the dreamtimeMy memory is still wet with my mother's tears,flowing by my father's grave.

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Just another black familyalone and lost in the race for a dime.

As early as I can remember,I was made aware of my differences,and slowly my pains educated meeither fight or lose.`One sided', I hear you say.Then come erase the scars from my brain,and show me the other side of your face:the one with the smile painted on with the colours

of our sacred land you abuse..`One sided?' Yeah mate!Cop it sweet 'n all.`After all, you stepped out of lineand got caught.So take it easy,' you say,`You're not like the rest.You have got brains and a bright future,there's no battle to be fought.'

But that don't tell me what I want to know.So tell me: why do we have to stand in line?Why do we have to live your way, in subtle slaveryto earn the things that once were free?Why do I have to close my eyes,and make believe I cannot seejust what you are doing:to my people-OUR PEOPLE-and me?

Well, bloody hell, Mate!It ain 't one sided at all!Come read the loneliness and confusionOn the walls of this cell of seven by eleven.Yeah, okay, I'll be honest:I ain't no saint.But then again,I SURE WASN'T BORN IN HEAVEN!

Life is Life by Robert Walker

The rose among thornsmay not feel the sun's kiss each mornin'and though it is forced to steal the sunshinestored in the branches by those who cast shadows,it is a rose and it lives.

No Time for Laughter by Irene Calgaret

I never heard her laughBut I did see her cry twiceThat was all in my adult life I had

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To share with her, my mother.

Her pain was as real as mineWe had no way to make up for The lost years, lost chancesTo love each other With the special loveOf a mother for her daughter andA daughter for her mother.

Together but apart we lost the chanceBut never the love we should have sharedThe bonds, the invisible bondsWere there and still are so strong.

Even though she has goneGod rest her soul l loved her soI never heard her laughIf she did, did she sound like meAnd did she think of meAs often as I would think and yearn for her?

And what would my life have been like withA Mum, my Mum toLove meJust meFor me, Irene Calgaret,Little Aboriginal girl, born in the fortiesTaken in the fiftiesTo a mission made just for us.

We deserved betterWhy didn’t we get a little betterOr just a little of what wereOur rights as Aboriginal childrenBlack Australians?

Yamitji Rich by Charmaine Papertalk-Green

Uncle often said – Yamatjis are rich peopleSome probably laugh – but I knew what he meant

Rich did not mean dollars or goldRich is spiritual. Rich is knowledge.Listening to wind bring weather reportswatching animals and birds with messagesfrom loved ones or of something to happen.

The land has strong rich storiesimprinted all over its face.Stories handed down for thousands of years

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(Sure is something to boast about)

Rich meant being able to sitAll day and read the landlearning from the landlistening to the landrespecting the land

And being rich inall this knowledge.

Stockmen by Alf Taylor

I would loveTo have beenA stockmanRiding the rangeSo boldSittin’ aroundA campfireSharin’ a coupleOf yarnsDrinkin’A hundred stubbiesAnd stillRound upThe herd

Or yodellin’An’ a strummin’A Slim DustySong or two.ButAs you knowI sitIn the parkWith a flagonWaitin’ forThe policeToRound us upAnd herdUs in

NON -ABORIGINAL VOICES REPRESENTING ABORIGINAL EXPERIENCES

The Last of His Tribe by Henry Kendall

He crouches, and buries his face on his knees, And hides in the dark of his hair;

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For he cannot look up to the storm-smitten trees, Or think of the loneliness there -- Of the loss and the loneliness there.

The wallaroos grope through the tufts of the grass, And turn to their coverts for fear;But he sits in the ashes and lets them pass Where the boomerangs sleep with the spear -- With the nullah, the sling and the spear.

Uloola, behold him! The thunder that breaks On the tops of the rocks with the rain,And the wind which drives up with the salt of the lakes, Have made him a hunter again -- A hunter and fisher again.

For his eyes have been full with a smouldering thought; But he dreams of the hunts of yore,And of foes that he sought, and of fights that he fought With those who will battle no more -- Who will go to the battle no more.

It is well that the water which tumbles and fills, Goes moaning and moaning along;For an echo rolls out from the sides of the hills, And he starts at a wonderful song -- At the sound of a wonderful song.

And he sees, through the rents of the scattering fogs, The corroboree warlike and grim,And the lubra who sat by the fire on the logs, To watch, like a mourner, for him -- Like a mother and mourner for him.

Will he go in his sleep from these desolate lands, Like a chief, to the rest of his race,With the honey-voiced woman who beckons and stands, And gleams like a dream in his face -- Like a marvellous dream in his face?

MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA

Be Good, Little Migrants by Uyen Loewald

Be good, little migrantsWe've saved you from starvationwar, landlessness, oppression

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Just display your gratitudebut don't be heard, don't be seen

Be good, little migrantsGive us your faithful servicesweep factories , clean mansionsprepare cheap exotic foodpay taxes, feed the mainstream

Be good, little migrantsuse leisure with prudencesew costumes, paint muralswrite music, and dance to our tuneOur culture must not be dull

Be good , little migrantswe've given you opportunityfor family reunionequality, and status, thoughyour colour could be wrong

Be good, little migrantsLearn English to distinguishESL from RSLavoid unions , and teach childrenrespect for institutions

Be good, little migrantsyou may fight one another, butattend Sunday School, learn mannerskeep violence within your culturesave industry from criminals

Be good, little migrantsIntelligence means obediencejust follow ASIO, CIAspy on your fellow countrymenhunt commies for Americans

Be good , little migrantsMuseums are built for your low artsfor your multiculturalismIn time, you'll reach excellenceJust waste few generations

WAR

Homecoming by Bruce Dawe

All day, day after day, they're bringing them home,they're picking them up, those they can find, and bringing them

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they're bringing them in, piled on the hulls of Grants, in trucks, inconvoys,

they're zipping them up in green plastic bags,they're tagging them now in Saigon, in the mortuary coolnessthey're giving them names, they're rolling them out ofthe deep-freeze lockers-on the tarmac at Tan Son Nhutthe noble jets are whining like hounds,they are bringing them home- curly-heads, kinky-hairs, crew-cuts, balding non-corns- they're high, now high and higher, over the land, the steaming

chow mein,their shadows are tracing the blue curve of the Pacificwith sorrowful quick fingers, heading south, heading east,home, home, home-and the coasts swing upward, the old

ridiculous curvaturesof earth, the knuckled bills, the mangrove-swamps, the desert

emptiness ...in their sterile housing they tilt towards these like skiers- taxiing in, on the long runways, the howl of their homecoming

risessurrounding them like their last moments (the mash, the

splendour)then fading at length as they moveon to small towns where dogs in the frozen sunsetraise muzzles in mute salute,and on to cities in whose wide web of suburbstelegrams tremble like leaves from a wintering treeand the spider grief swings in his bitter geometry- they're bringing them home, now, too late, too early.

Fighting Hard by Henry Lawson

Rolling out to fight for England, singing songs across the sea; Rolling North to fight for England, and to fight for you and me. Fighting hard for France and England, where the storms of Death are hurled; Fighting hard for Australasia and the honour of the World! Fighting hard. Fighting hard for Sunny Queensland—fighting for Bananaland, Fighting hard for West Australia, and the mulga and the sand; Fighting hard for Plain and Wool-Track, and the haze of western heat— Fighting hard for South Australia and the bronze of Farrar’s Wheat! Fighting hard.

Fighting hard for fair Victoria, and the mountain and the glen; (And the Memory of Eureka—there were other tyrants then), For the glorious Gippsland forests and the World’s great Singing Star— For the irrigation channels where the cabbage gardens are— Fighting hard.

Fighting hard for gale and earthquake, and the wind-swept ports between;

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For the wild flax and manuka and the terraced hills of green. Fighting hard for wooden homesteads, where the mighty kauris stand— Fighting hard for fern and tussock!—Fighting hard for Maoriland! Fighting hard.

Fighting hard for little Tassy, where the apple orchards grow; (And the Northern Territory just to give the place a show), Fighting hard for Home and Empire, while the Commonwealth prevails— And, in spite of all her blunders, dying hard for New South Wales. Dying hard.

Fighting for the Pride of Old Folk, and the people that you know; And the girl you left behind you—(ah! the time is passing slow). For the proud tears of a sister! come you back, or never come! And the weary Elder Brother, looking after things at home— Fighting Hard! You Lucky Devils ! Fighting hard.

I Was Only 19 by John Schumann

Mum and Dad and Denny saw the passing out parade at Puckapunyal, (1t was long march from cadets). The Sixth Battalion was the next to tour and it was me who drew the card… We did Canungra and Shoalwater before we left.

And Townsville lined the footpath as we marched down to the quay; This clipping from the paper shows us young and strong and clean; And there's me in my slouch hat, with my SLR and greens… God help me, I was only nineteen.

From Vung Tau riding Chinooks to the dust at Nui Dat, I'd been in and out of choppers now for months. But we made our tents a home, VB and pin-ups on the lockers, and an Asian orange sunset through the scrub. And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep? And night time's just a jungle dark and a barking M16? And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means?God help me, I was only nineteen.

A four week operation, when each step could mean your last one on two legs:it was a war within yourself. But you wouldn't let your mates down 'til they had you dusted off, so you closed your eyes and thought about something else.

Then someone yelled out "Contact"', and the bloke behind me swore. We hooked in there for hours, then a God almighty roar; Frankie kicked a mine the day that mankind kicked the moon: - God help me, he was going home in June.

1 can still see Frankie, drinking tinnies in the Grand Hotel

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on a thirty-six hour rec. leave in Vung Tau. And I can still hear Frankie lying screaming in the jungle. 'Till the morphine came and killed the bloody row

 And the Anzac legends didn't mention mud and blood and tears, and stories that my father told me never seemed quite realI caught some pieces in my back that I didn't even feel… God help me, I was only nineteen.

And can you tell me, doctor, why I still can't get to sleep?And why the Channel Seven chopper chills me to my feet? And what's this rash that comes and goes, can you tell me what it means? God help me,I was only nineteen.

SPORT

Bradman 's Last Innings by John Foulcher

Bowled for a duck, you could have asked for better ...From the first, through the yearsof Depression, so many came to see you, forgetting

the dole queues, the homes dull with a longdemocracy. And then the War, womenwaiting for their Saturday oval husbands.

And peace. Padded up again, you gave peoplesomething the world lacked: rulesto play by, winners, clear white flannels

sharp against the green turf. But it never works out,never-four runs short of that centuryaverage, at the last, betrayed by your own game.

Simply the Best by John Foulcher(Australians wouldn't give a XXXX for anything else'

On the grass, the teamschurn and thump. Like notches on a gun,four huge red crossesline each yellow goalpost,while the crowd

holds togethertheir yellow tins with four red crosses.They lift their tinsand kiss them, one after the other.They stand and howl. On the concourse,

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though, a man wanderslike a lost child, back and forth,his disorderdifferent from ours: he holds a carry-bagtight in one hand

and he clutches his yellow tinwith the other. Back and forth he goes, searching,perhaps, for the reasonhe's here, we're here. Back and forth.'Siddown, ya mongoloid

moron!' 'Where'sthe ferris wheel, mate?'Cigarette smokethick as a misthovers over the field. When the home side scores,

the yellow tinsfly like birds above us.Crushed, they liedead on the concrete.The children kick them around.

ENVIRONMENT

Death of a Whale by John Blight

When the mouse died, there was a sort of pity:the tiny, delicate creature made for grief.Yesterday, instead, the dead whale on the reefdrew an excited multitude to the jetty.How must a whale die to wring a tear?Lugubrious death of a whale: the bigfeast for the gulls and sharks; the tugof the tide simulating life still there,until the air, polluted, swings this waylike a door ajar from a slaughterhouse.Poohl pooh( spare us, give us the death of a mouseby its tiny hole; not this in our lovely bay.-Sorry we are, too, when a child dies;but at the immolation of a race who cries?

My Country by Dorothea Mackellar

The love of field and coppice,Of green and shaded lanes.Of ordered woods and gardensIs running in your veins,Strong love of grey-blue distanceBrown streams and soft dim skies

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I know but cannot share it,My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,A land of sweeping plains,Of ragged mountain ranges,Of droughts and flooding rains.I love her far horizons,I love her jewel-sea,Her beauty and her terror -The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forestAll tragic to the moon,The sapphire-misted mountains,The hot gold hush of noon.Green tangle of the brushes,Where lithe lianas coil,And orchids deck the tree-topsAnd ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!Her pitiless blue sky,When sick at heart, around us,We see the cattle die -But then the grey clouds gather,And we can bless againThe drumming of an army,The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!Land of the Rainbow Gold,For flood and fire and famine,She pays us back threefold -Over the thirsty paddocks,Watch, after many days,The filmy veil of greennessThat thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,A wilful, lavish land -All you who have not loved her,You will not understand -Though earth holds many splendours,Wherever I may die,I know to what brown countryMy homing thoughts will fly.

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