#australian poetry

[feral-ballad]

Ingeborg Bachmann, tr. by Mark Anderson, from In the Storm of Roses: Selected Poems; “Autumn Maneuver”

[Text ID: “In the cellar of my heart, sleepless,”]

#ingeborg bachmann #excerpts #writings #literature #poetry #fragments #selections #words #quotes #poetry collection #typography #poetry in translation #austrian literature #australian poetry

[haveyoureadthispoem-poll]

"I love a sunburnt country, / A land of sweeping plains..."

Read it here | Reblog for a larger sample size!

#closed polls #polls #poetry #poems #poetry polls #poets and writing #tumblr poetry #have you read this #dorothea mackellar #my country #australia #australian poetry

[sinterhinde]

My father the sky, Danny Silva Soberano

Danny Silva Soberano is a poet. They currently serve as a poetry editor for Voiceworks Magazine, and is a recipient of a Hot Desk Fellowship from The Wheeler Centre in 2020. 

(peril.com.au)

See also: Interview with Danny Silva Soberano and Sumudu Samarawickrama

https://www.liminalmag.com/interviews/darlene-silva-soberano

#contemporary poetry #filipino poetry #danny silva soberano #australian poetry #2010s #queer poetry

[goneahead]

“Change and compel, slash us into shape, But not our roots deep in the soil of old. We are different hearts and minds In a different body. Do not ask of us To be deserters, to disown our mother, To change the unchangeable. The gum cannot be trained into an oak.”

~~Oodgeroo Noonuccal, from The Dawn is at Hand

#Oodgeroo Noonuccal #goneahead reblog #aborginal poetry #australian poetry

[theopshoppoet]

The Australian Sunrise

The Morning Star paled slowly, the Cross hung low to the sea, And down the shadowy reaches the tide came swirling free, The lustrous purple blackness of the soft Australian night Waned in the grey awakening that heralded the light; Out of the dying darkness, over the forest dim The pearly dew of the dawning clung to each giant limb, Till the sun came up from ocean, red with the cold sea mist, And smote on the limestone ridges, and the shining tree-tops kissed; Then the fiery Scorpion vanished, the magpie's note was heard, And the wind in the sheoak wavered, and the honeysuckles stirred, The airy golden vapour rose from the river breast, The kingfisher came darting out of his crannied nest, And the bulrushes and reed-beds put off their sallow grey, And burnt with cloudy crimson at dawning of the day.

James Lister Cuthbertson

From The Poets' Commonwealth (Second Impression, pub. 1928)

#the australian sunrise #james lister cuthbertson #poem #poet #poetry #australian poem #australian poetry #australia #australiana #writing

[uwmspeccoll]

It is Fine Press Friday!

Welcome to this week’s Fine Press Friday post, which features another book from our late friend Dennis Bayuzick entitled Ockers. This poem was written by Australian poet πo (1951) and features larger-than-life pop-art style linocuts created by Mike Hudson (1939-2021), as well as unique handset type by Jadwiga Jarvis (1947-2021). Ockers tells the story of the titular type of Australian man (a man that is uncouth and aggressive, but also helpful and has a good sense of humor) in an expressive, exciting manner. A fun, but sometimes crude read, the wording of the poem is further enhanced by the linocuts that help communicate the same over-the-top message as the author’s writing.

This copy is part of an edition of 40 signed and number copies and was printed at the Wayzgoose Press (Katoomba, Australia) in 1999. The entire book’s creation and execution was done by Mike Hudson and Jadwiga Jarvis, consists of handset types in a variety of serifs, and was printed on paper using a Western proof press. The creators used a concertina binding for the book.

View more Fine Press Friday Posts.

View other books from the collection of Dennis Bayuzick.

View more books from Wayzgoose Press.

– Sarah S., Special Collections Graduate Intern

#Fine Press Friday #fine press fridays #wayzgoose press #ockers #pi o #mike hudson #jadwiga jarvis #australia #australian poetry #poetry #fine press #fine press books #western proof press #concertina binding #dennis bayuzick #sarah s. #letterpress #letterpress printing #Magniani Incisioni

[fox-the-rainbow]

Flint web skin

Horsepower holders fouling the hills Weaving a curse of current to their changing desires A heart of iron weaving skins of webs with the flint of their industry A plan that will seal the heat and death of the planet But one day, the grass will still grow over their last construction

View On WordPress

#Adam #australian poetry #Destiny #poem #Poems #poetry

[creatediana]

“Tree” by Aboriginal Australian poet and playwright Kevin Gilbert (1933–1993), published in the 1988 anthology, Inside Black Australia, edited by Gilbert and included among other contemporary Aboriginal poets

#that anthology is seriously interesting i think everyone should check it out #kevin gilbert #influences #black history month #aboriginal australia #poetry #australian poetry #twentieth century

[leavemeinbrunswickstreet]

“Now we must measure

our days by nights, our tropics by their poles,

love by its end and all our speech by silence.

See, in these gulfs, how small the light of home.”

Judith A. Wright (1945)

#brisbane #australian gothic #web weaving #gothic #judith wright #poetry #literature #lit #australian literature #australian poetry

[mattydemise]

We are the Old-world people, Ours were the hearts to dare; But our youth is spent, and our backs are bent, And the snow is in our hair. Back in the early fifties, Dim through the mists of years, By the bush-grown strand of a wild, strange land, We entered - the pioneers. Our axes rang in the woodlands, Where the gaudy bush-birds flew, And we turned the loam of our newfound home, Where the Eucalyptus grew. Housed in the rough log shanty, Camped in the leaking tent, From sea to view of the mountains blue Where the eager diggers went. We wrought with a will unceasing, We moulded, and fashioned, and planned And we fought with the black and we blazed the track That ye might inherit the land. There are your shops and churches, Your cities of stucco and smoke; And the swift trains fly where the wild cat’s cry O’er the sad bush silence broke. Take now the fruit of our labour, Nourish and guard it with care; For our youth is spent, and our backs are bent And the snow is in our hair.

‘Pioneers’ A Poem by Australian poet Wilfred Frank Flexmore Hudson

#mattobsidian #poem #poetry #frank hudson #australian poetry

[ktheqw]

Another life

Shadows deepen Sun flows through the windows Unable to touch so much Carpet burnt by the sun in places

If there are ghosts, they are laughing they've seen so many hearts before The folly of the footsteps lingers We repeat the customs in different bodies Death and life take on a cog-like view

Passed down from stone to stone No women at the helm until now Wasted spaces on ancient customs Looks of wonder, some anger

The carpet remains for now Tattered and dingy in the stuffy places Cranky vacuums inflict various opinions Sworn enemies in love for so long

Shadows deepen in the room A tree from outside wants to sit for tea Birds flee from the windows The final curtain closes on another life

Dead flowers litter tables We will keep them on the stem again Dad would have been sad Another set of footsteps lost

#poet thoughts #original poetry #poetry #candkwords #australian poetry #gippsland poets #ghosts of home #ancestral home #vacuum #light #shadows #poetry story #footsteps lost #poetsandwriters #poets on tumblr #another death

[feral-ballad]

Ingeborg Bachmann, tr. by Mark Anderson, from In the Storm of Roses: Selected Poems; “Great Landscape near Vienna”

[Text ID: “falling on the steps / of melancholy, falling deeper,”]

#ingeborg bachmann #melancholy #excerpts #writings #literature #poetry #fragments #selections #words #quotes #poetry collection #typography #poetry in translation #australian poetry #austrian literature

[thewondermentofillustration]

The Old Wife and the New He sat beneath the curling vines That round the gay verandah twined, His forehead seamed with sorrow's lines, An old man with a weary mind. His young wife, with a rosy face And brown arms ambered by the sun, Went flitting all about the place- Master and mistress both in one. What caused that old man's look of care? Was she not blithe and fair to see? What blacker than her raven hair, What darker than her eyes might be? The old man bent his weary head; The sun light on his grair shonel His thoughts were with a woman dead And buried, years and years agone. The good old wife who took her stand Beside him at the altar-side And walked with him, hand clasped in hand, Through joy and sorrow till she died. Ah, she was fair as heart's desire, And gay, and supple-limbed, in truth, aAnd in his veins ther leapt like fire, The red-hot blood of lusty youth. She stood by him in shine and shade, And, when hard-beaten at his best, She took him like a child and laid His aching head upon her breast. She helped him make a little home Where once were gum-trees guant and stark, And bloodwoods waved green-feathered foam- Working from dawn of day to dark. Till that dark forest formed a frame For vineyards that the gods might bless, And what was savage once became An Eden in the wilderness. And how at first vintage time She laughed and sang- you see such shapes On vases of the Grecian prime - And danced a reel upon the grapes! And ever, as the years went on, All things she kept with thrifty hand, Till never shone the sun upon A fairer homestead in the land. Then children came - ah, me! ah, me! Sad blessings that a mother craves! That old man from the seat could see The shadows playing o'er their graves. And then she closed her eyes at last, Her gentle, useful peaceful life Was over - garnered with the past! God rest thee gently, Good Old Wife! His young wife with a rosy face, And laughs, the reddest lips apart, But cannot fill the empty place Whithin that old man's lonely heart. His young wife has a rosy face, And brown arms ambered by the sun, Goes flitting all about the place, Master and mistress both in one; But though she sings, or though she sighs, He sees her not - he sees instead A gray-haired Shade with gentle eyes- The good old wife, long dead, long dead.

He sits beneath the curling vines, Through which the merry sunrays dart, His forehead seamed with sorrow's lines - An old man with a broken heart. - Poem by Victor J. Daley (1858 – 1905), illustration by Benjamin Edwin Minns (1863-1937), The Lone Hand, Vol. 2 No. 12, 1st April, 1908

#BE Minns #Benjamin Edwin Minns #Victor J Daley #Australian poet #Australian illustrator #The Lone Hand #illustration #vintage illustration #poem #Bush poetry #Australian poetry #1900s #1908 #death #remarriage #romantic poem #pen and ink

[ohno-poetry]

#omar musa #poetrycommunity #poetry #free verse #poetryinspiration #poetscommunity #australian poetry

[goneahead]

Gooboora, the Silent Pool

For Grannie Sunflower, Last of the Noonuccals

Gooboora, Gooboora, the Water of Fear That awed the Noonuccals once numerous here, The Bunyip is gone from your bone-strewn bed, And the clans departed to drift with the dead. Once in the far time before the whites came How light were their hearts in the dance and the game! Gooboora, Gooboora, to think that today A whole happy tribe are all vanished away! What mystery lurks by the Water of rear, And what is the secret still lingering here? For birds hasten by as in days of old, No wild thing will drink of your waters cold. Gooboora, Gooboora, still here you remain, But where are my people I look for in vain? They are gone from the hill, they are gone from the shore, And the place of the Silent Pool knows them no more. But I think they still gather when daylight is done And stand round the pool at the setting of sun, Ashadowy band that is now without care, Fearing no longer the Thing in its lair. Old Death has passed by you but took the dark throng; Now lost is the Noonuceal language and song. Gooboora, Gooboora, it makes the heart sore That you should be here but my people no more!

~~Oodgeroo Noonuccal

#goneahead reblog #Oodgeroo Noonuccal #aboriginal poetry #australian poetry

[nudeartpluspoetry]

"The Meaning of Existence," by Les Murray

short poem

#youtube #Les Murray #Australian poetry #poetry video #meaning of life