The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry Read online

  John Kinsella is the author of many books of poetry, fiction and criticism. He has also written for the stage. He is a frequent collaborator with other poets, critics, fictionalists, artists, musicians, labourers, activists and friends. Recent fiction includes Tide (Transit Lounge, 2013) and Crow’s Breath (Transit Lounge, 2015); recent poetry includes Jam Tree Gully (WW Norton, 2012), Sack (Picador and Fremantle Press, 2014), Firebreaks (WW Norton, 2016) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (Picador, 2016); recent criticism includes Activist Poetics: Anarchy in the Avon Valley (ed. Niall Lucy, Liverpool University Press, 2010) and Polysituatedness: A Poetics of Displacement. He has edited many anthologies including the Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry. John Kinsella is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University.

  Tracy Ryan has published four novels, the latest of which is Claustrophobia (Transit Lounge, 2014), which has also been translated into Italian. The most recent of her eight books of poetry is Hoard (Whitmore Press, 2015). She has twice received the Western Australian Premier’s Book Award for poetry (for The Willing Eye, 2000, and The Argument, 2011, both from Fremantle Press) and her work has received other awards including the Australian Book Review’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize, and the Times Literary Supplement’s Poems on the Underground Competition. The Water Bearer will be published by Fremantle Press in 2018. She has worked in libraries, bookselling, editing, and community journalism, and has taught at many universities. She has a strong interest in languages and translation.

  for the poets

  Contents

  Introduction

  George Fletcher Moore (b.1798 d.1886)

  Western Australia For Me

  ‘A’ (n.d.)

  Mount Eliza

  Anonymous (n.d.)

  A New Song

  Delta (n.d.)

  The Song of the Ticket of Leave Man

  Elizabeth Deborah Brockman (b.1833 d.1915)

  On Receiving From England a Bunch of Dried Wild Flowers

  Sonnet

  The Cedars

  Requiescat in Pace

  John Boyle O’Reilly (b.1844 d.1890)

  The Dukite Snake

  The Gaol

  Henry Ebenezer Clay (b.1844 d.1896)

  from Two and Two

  ‘Humanitas’ (n.d.)

  A Blackfellow’s Appeal

  Henry Charles Prinsep (b.1844 d.1922)

  Josephine

  Acaster (n.d.)

  O’er a Native’s Grave

  Alfred Chandler (‘Spinifex’) (b.1852 d.1941)

  The Poet

  Lights Along the Mile

  Coolgardie 1893

  Mary Doyle (‘May Kidson’) (b.1858 d.1942)

  Perth in Morning Light

  John Philip Bourke (‘Bluebush’) (b.1860 d.1914)

  When I am Dead

  Percy Henn (b.1865 d.1955)

  A Soldier’s Funeral

  Charles Wiltens Andrée Hayward (b.1866 d.1950)

  Belinda

  Along the Road to Cue

  ‘C’ (n.d.)

  The Tothersider and The Perthite

  Edwin Greenslade Murphy (‘Dryblower’) (b.1866 d.1939)

  The Lodes that Under-lie

  The Rhymes that Our Hearts Can Read

  Thomas H. Wilson (‘Crosscut’) (b.1867 d.1925)

  A Man was Killed in the Mine Today

  The Boulder Block

  The Poverty Pot

  Frederick Charles Vosper (b.1869 d.1901)

  The New Woman

  Lilian Wooster Greaves (b.1869 d.1956)

  The Farmer’s Daughter

  W.C. Thomas (b.1869 d.1957)

  The Terrace

  F.W. Ophel (b.1871 d.1912)

  His Epitaph

  The Phantoms of the Dark

  ‘The Boulder Bard’ (‘Willy-Willy’) (n.d.)

  Ode to West Australia

  ‘The Exile’ (n.d.)

  Caste

  Mingkarlajirri (d.late 1920s)

  The Marble Bar Pool Spirit is Releasing a Flood

  (Wurlanyalu Nganyjarranga Jurta Murru Marri)

  Dorham Doolette (b.1872 d.1925)

  The Ballade of Cottesloe Beach

  Annie H. Mark (b.1875 d.1947)

  When Morning-glory Trims a Fence

  Miriny-Mirinymarra Jingkiri (d.1930s)

  Koolinda in Harbour

  (Kurlintanya)

  At Wurruwangkanya Jawiri is Increasing the Cold

  (Wurruwangkanya Jipal Pirnu Jawirilu)

  Katharine Susannah Prichard (b.1883 d.1969)

  The Earth Lover

  Oscar Walters (b.1889 d.1948)

  ’17 And ’32

  Old Tumbler (Yanmi aka Walaburu) (b.1890. d.1962)

  Racecourse Wharlu (Water Snake)

  Yintilypirna Kaalyamarra (d. early 1940s)

  Rows and Rows of Rain Clouds

  (Yirra, Kuji, Yirra, Karti Ngayirrmani)

  The Coastline Looks Strange to Me From Out Here

  (Ngurra Parta Ngayinyu Ngajapa Wangkurrungura Kapungurala)

  Peter Hopegood (b.1891 d.1967)

  On Ninety-Mile Beach

  Wimia King (Wimiya) (b. c.1893 d.1979)

  Tjanginara the Plane

  Olive Pell (b.1903 d.2002)

  Monte Bello

  My Patriarchal Table Nest

  Paul Hasluck (b.1905 d.1993)

  At the Aquarium

  Jack Sorensen (b.1907 d.1949)

  My River

  The Dead Don’t Care

  Breakaways

  Coppin Dale (Garargeman or Yinbal) (b. c.1908 d.1993)

  Gold Fever

  Baaburgurt (Bulyen, George Elliot) (n.d.)

  Exile’s Lament

  Wirrkaru Jingkiri (d.1960s)

  Doctor’s Day

  (Maparnkarra)

  William Hart-Smith (b.1911 d.1990)

  Cormorants, Trigg Island

  Galahs

  Razor Fish

  Kenneth Mackenzie (b.1913 d.1955)

  The Snake

  A Robin, Too

  The Awakening

  Judith Sewing

  Joan Williams (‘Justina Williams’) (b.1914 d.2008)

  No Coward Colour

  Alec Choate (b.1915 d.2010)

  Words for a Granddaughter

  Dingo

  Jack Davis (b.1917 d.2000)

  Rottnest

  Forest Giant

  Red Robin

  Mining Company’s Hymn

  John Pat

  The First-born

  Wolfe Fairbridge (b.1918 d.1950)

  Consecration of the House

  Karri Forest

  Merv Lilley (b.1919 d.2016)

  The Lesson

  Swift

  Dorothy Hewett (b.1923 d.2002)

  The Valley of the Giants

  In Midland Where the Trains Go By

  Once I Rode with Clancy

  Living Dangerously

  The Salt Lake

  Katakapu (b. c.1930)

  A Stranger to this Country, I’m Following Them

  (Pampanulu Jina Marna Ngurra Panalala)

  Night Drive in a V-8 Buckboard

  (Ngananyakarra Nganyjarra Nganil Ngarri)

  Waparla Pananykarra (b. c.1930 d.1995)

  It’s Standing Still After the Motor Has Been Started Up

  (Ngurntirri Jipantangu Nguntuntu Karriyan)

  Jirlparurrumarra Piraparrjirri

  Our Poor Trees are Almost Submerged

  (Pukapannya)

  Griffith Watkins (b.1930 d.1969)

 
; Heatwave

  Bar Brawl

  Ee Tiang Hong (b.1933 d.1990)

  Coming To

  Perth

  Fay Zwicky (b.1933)

  Kaddish

  Picnic

  William Grono (b.1934)

  Separation

  Peter Jeffery (b.1935)

  Pompeii in Australia

  Randolph Stow (b.1935 d.2010)

  The Land’s Meaning

  Merry-go-round

  Penelope

  Persephone

  Ruins of the City of Hay

  Still Life with Amaryllis Belladonna

  Glen Phillips (b.1936)

  Spring Burning

  Fourteen Tankas for Salt-Lake Country

  Gordon Mackay-Warna (n.d.)

  Grassfire

  Tableland Bushfire

  Mudrooroo (Colin Johnson) (b.1938)

  Auntie Margaret

  ImagesArtytypesStereotypes

  Mick Fazeldean (d.1990s)

  Whirlwind

  Ian Templeman (b.1938 d.2015)

  First Death

  Peter Bibby (b.1940)

  Wornaway Bat

  Andrew Taylor (b.1940)

  Swamp Poems

  Dick Alderson (b.1941)

  Skein

  Alan Alexander (b.1941)

  Limestone at Margaret River

  Lee Knowles (b.1941)

  Opportunity Shop

  from Batavia Islands

  Shape-Shifter

  Nicholas Hasluck (b.1942)

  Bikini Atoll

  Yilgarn

  Brian Dibble (b.1943)

  A Poet Remembers the Farm

  Andrew Burke (b.1944)

  The Present Depression

  The Old Tambourine

  Caroline Caddy (b.1944)

  Lake Grace

  Pelican

  Wheatbelt

  Michael Youlin Birch (b.1944 d.1968)

  2516349, Jones, Private W.

  Hal Colebatch (b.1945)

  Autumn Morning

  The Romantic Poet Goes On a Little Journey

  Mary Champion (b.1947)

  Long Park

  Jan Teagle Kapetas (b.1947)

  Slaughtering the Lamb

  Alf Taylor (b.1947)

  Moorditj Yorgah

  The Land

  Marion May Campbell (b.1948)

  Time Inside

  Jimmy Chi (b.1948)

  Black Girl

  Dennis Haskell (b.1948)

  The Basis of All Knowledge

  After Chemo

  No-one Ever Found You

  The Trees

  Beate Josephi (b.1948)

  In Praise of a Second Language

  Sunil Govinnage (b.1950)

  I Don’t Write Poems in Sinhala Anymore

  Philip Salom (b.1950)

  Seeing Gallipoli From the Sky

  Barbecue of the Primitives

  Ode to Skin

  We Called it The Engine

  Annamaria Weldon (b.1950)

  Coracle

  Kristy Jones (b. c.1950)

  The Past Still Lives

  Sally Morgan (b.1951)

  I Can Count

  Janey Told Me

  Zan Ross (b.1951)

  Absolute Daily Disposable

  Wendy Jenkins (b.1952)

  The Silence of Mussels

  Dolphin Sightings

  Rod Moran (b.1952)

  A Memoir of Birds

  My Daughter Reading

  David Brooks (b.1953)

  The Pines, Cottesloe

  Philip Collier (b.1953)

  Grave Change

  Philip Mead (b.1953)

  There’s Small Grass Appearing on the Hill-side

  Robert Walker (b.1953 d.1984)

  Solitary Confinement

  Andrew Lansdown (b.1954)

  Between Glances

  Emergence

  Shane McCauley (b.1954)

  The Dissolution of a Fox

  The Cosmonauts Smell Flowers

  Graeme Dixon (b.1955 d.2010)

  Prison

  Holocaust Island

  Liana Joy Christensen (b.1955)

  Idiom

  Barbara Temperton (b.1955)

  Splinter

  Night Camp

  Pat Torres (b.1956)

  Gurrwayi Gurrwayi, The Rain Bird

  Kim Scott (b.1957)

  Kaya

  Mar Bucknell (b.1957)

  We Have Tried to Make Marks on the Glass

  Roland Leach (b.1957)

  Seven Miles to School

  Grandmother

  Marcella Polain (b.1958)

  Zero Point Four

  Paul Hetherington (b.1958)

  Meckering Earthquake

  Michael Heald (b.1959)

  Pear Tree

  Leeches

  Maree Dawes (b.1960)

  Gesso

  Frieda Hughes (b.1960)

  Wooroloo

  Kate Lilley (b.1960)

  South Perth Poems

  Graham Kershaw (b.1961)

  The Heywood Spire

  Afeif Ismail (b.1962)

  The Empire of My Grandmother

  David McComb (b.1962 d.1999)

  Behind the Garages of this Country

  Blessed Be

  Charmaine Papertalk-Green (b.1962)

  Don’t Want Me to Talk

  A White Australia Mindset

  Strong Wajarri Man

  Blinding Loyalty

  Sarah French (b.1963)

  Boy

  Kevin Gillam (b.1963)

  the furniture of thought

  John Kinsella (b.1963)

  Playing Cricket at Wheatlands

  Goat

  Nandi Chinna (b.1964)

  Hydrology

  Mags Webster (b.1964)

  Nights in Suburbia

  Morgan Yasbincek (b.1964)

  the reindeer

  with my sister at the funeral parlor

  Tracy Ryan (b.1964)

  Lost Property

  First Burn

  Jackson (b.1965)

  suck faint amity

  am I not?

  The Antipoet (Allan Boyd) (b.1966)

  fly in fly out fly in fly out

  Lucy Dougan (b.1966)

  The Chest

  Mannequin Brides

  David McCooey (b.1967)

  Pink Moon

  Gabrielle Everall (b.1968)

  Stink

  Concord as you get off the Concorde

  Amanda Joy (b.1970)

  Snake Skin, Roe Swamp

  John Mateer (b.1971)

  Ghost Wedding

  Fire Imagined

  The Frog-Memory

  Contemplating a Migraine

  Emma Rooksby (b.1972)

  Garbage

  Miriam Wei Wei Lo (b.1973)

  Don’t Call Me Grandma

  Bumboat Cruise on the Singapore River

  Claire Potter (b.1975)

  The Appeal of Cranes

  Toby Davidson (b.1977)

  H2

  Scott-Patrick Mitchell (b.1977)

  him

  Eight Letters To A Lover, II

  Jeremy Balius (b.1979)

  Day 6

  Shevaun Cooley (b.1979)

  let down at birth into the dark well and overflowing with it

  J.P. Quinton (b.1981)

  Little River

  Ode to C.Y. O’Connor

  Caitlin Maling (b.1985)

  The Break

  Corey Wakeling (b.1985)

  Lingo Surprise

  Kia Groom (b.1986)

  Phantasmagoria

  Siobhan Hodge (b.1988)

  Apple

  References to Introduction

  Biographical Notes

  List of First Publications

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  This anthology of Western Australian poetry is historically oriented. Poets are arranged in chronological order according to b
irthdates or individual poems by original publication date, especially with the early ‘colonial poets’ and some Aboriginal singers, whose life dates are not possible to ascertain. Such a system is not perfect, since birthdates don’t give a sense of the history of an art, but this book’s purpose is to show the range of poetry across a period of time within a specific ‘area’, not only to be an historical document.

  Given that poetry’s traditions and history in the region that we most frequently term ‘Western Australia’ go back well beyond the colonial marker of the Swan River Colony, and prior to that the outpost at Albany, and prior to that the contact made by Europeans with Indigenous peoples of the Western seaboard dating back to the sixteenth century, birth-dates seem a little arbitrary and purely a model of colonial convenience.

  It is difficult, if not impossible, for contemporary anthologists to represent Aboriginal song-cycles, and the emphatic presence of the ‘poetic’ in the songs’ stories and the mimetic coordinates of oral memory. But still we have a sense of the intensity of song and poem-making in the songs and chants translated from traditional communities, and from elders who passed on the poetry of communities (and sometimes aspects of their own lives, especially individual songs, such as those collected in Taruru: Aboriginal Song Poetry from the Pilbara), in their contact with ‘European’ or ‘white society’, or indeed with any of the migrant communities that make up Western Australia. The centrality to country and belonging in these songs extends through to the present day and beyond, and might be viewed as outside any chronological markers ‘Western’ thought might introduce.

  Indigenous songs and poetry are not the literal start to this book, because we have placed them where they have appeared in the process of collection and translation or, for Indigenous poets writing in English, according to their birthdates. Yet we have the eternal presence of Indigenous songs and poetry as a kind of ‘starting point’ to this anthology of Western Australia poetry, and then, in a different sense, we have the undeniable influence and presence of Indigenous country in the non-Indigenous poetry that comes with and follows ‘settlement’.

  Having been made welcome by Noongar people, by various accounts, many ‘settlers’ exploited this goodwill, and applied the basic principles of greed and rights accorded by the distant British crown to their appropriation of land and removal of Noongar people. We believe that underneath the early poetry of Western Australia is this knowledge — either defensively or indifferently or in the sense of denial — of non-acknowledgement of prior presence and ‘ownership’. Whatever ‘rights’ might have been accorded Indigenous peoples by the Crown, the reality was that they had few or any rights under colonial administrations. The colonising urge is a self-serving one; cultural difference, and the inability to empathise pragmatically with the colonised people/s, meant that whatever individual attitudes or perceptions were regarding Indigenous tribes, Indigenous people were only going to lose and suffer in terms of that difference. There are many poems we could have included that show basic racism at work, that are rebarbative, reductive and plain old name-caller versifying dressed up as art, or as in-house humour, but we have chosen not to include them. If readers are interested in seeing the racist rhymes (‘serious’ and/or ‘humorous’) that colonial Western Australian poets could dish up, they may take a look at Western Australian Writing: An On-line Anthology (edited by John Kinsella for the UWA Library) that shows a wider historic range of material. Here, however, our raison d’être is to show the most interesting Western Australian poetry we can from over the last 180-odd years, as well as to include the odd poem here and there indicative of broader cultural conversations going on in Western Australian communities. There are quite a few masterpieces in this selection, but there are also poems chosen to illustrate their times within the constraints mentioned.