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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Poetry Friday: An Aussie Christmas

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It’s Poetry Friday and it’s only 2 weeks till Christmas, so to celebrate I thought I’d share an Australian Christmas poem I wrote several years ago.

When I was growing up, all the Christmas stories, songs and television shows focussed on cold, and snow. and hot meals. And every Christmas where I was it would be hot and sunny, and we would try to keep cool with cool drinks and swimming exepditions. It seems a huge contraditicon.  Luckily, in recent years Australian publishers and creators have worked to produce more Australian Christmas content, but still there’s lots of talk of snowmen and icicles and such.

So here’s my Aussie Christmas song:

Aussie Christmas

We sing of jingle bells and snow,

of warm red suits and ho ho ho;

but none of this is quite the way

when it is Christmas here below.

Downunder in good old Aussieland

it’s time for sun and surf and sand.

It’s hot, not cold, it’s summertime

and summer treats are in demand.

Hard work for reindeer in this heat.

Hot roofs would burn their tender feet

and racing through the summer skies

would soon leave them feeling beat.

And as for Santa in fur and such:

he’d soon feel overdressed a touch.

Being snug and warm in blistering heat

isn’t likely to impress him much.

He also needs roos for the job

of sleigh-pulling – an Aussie mob

to get him moving all around

from Sydney town to Iron Knob.

His suit, too, needs an overthrow:

a new outfit, from head to toe.

Some boardies, a singlet and some thongs

would seem to be the way to go.

So let’s not sing of snow and ice,

instead I’ll give you this advice:

roos, utes and summer are the go

for Christmas songs that sound real nice.

So ripper, bonza, beudy, strewth!

Though you might think my song uncouth

it’s true blue and it’s ridgy didge

to sing a song that tells the truth.

(Poem copyright Sally Murphy)

Enjoy the countdown to Christmas – and enjoy more Poetry Friday goodness by visiting  A Teaching Life, where all the posts will be rounded up later today.

Poetry Friday: I Own Poetry

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Welcome to Poetry Friday. Poetry Friday, as a day which celebrates/promotes/savours/espouses poetry, is always special. But this one is extra special for me because I now officially own poetry. Don’t believe me? Well, I have the certificate to prove it:

Poetry Ownership

Of course, as magnanimous as I am, I am happy to share poetry with whoever loves it – and whoever doesn’t yet love it, too. If I kept it all to myself, the world would be a poorer place.  But, to celebrate my acquisition, here’s a poem about poetry (a meta-poem) which I wrote earlier this year for the Poetry Tag blog I share with my friend Rebecca.

Poetry

If you’d like to own a word of your own and support chidlren’s literacy, head to Own a Word.

And, if you are are looking for more poetry goodness, today’s Poetry Friday roundup is  at Buffy’s Blog.

Poetry Friday: My Country, and a Parody

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Welcome to Poetry Friday. It is a beautiful time of year here in Australia, with blue skies, days warm enough to swim, flowers blooming, birds singing, and school holidays and Christmas rapidly approaching. Makes me glad to be alive – and to be Australian. This week, as I’ve been walking, the words of Dorothea Mackellar’s poem about the country, have been going through my head, so I thought I might share two extracted stanzas today:

My Country

by Dorothea Mackellar
Stanza 2

SUnset over backbeach

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!

Stanza 6
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 country
My homing thoughts will fly.

(You can read the full poem here. To learn more about the poem and the poet, you can visit the official website).

As is often the case with very famous poems, My Country has been used as a model for new poems, and parodied over and over again. Is this a bad thing? Not in my book. When we tak something familiar and use it as a writing exercise, or to make a statement, we connect with readers with an additional layer of meaning, My favourite parody of My Country is Oscar Krahnvohl’s version, which begins:

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of open drains
Mid-urban sprawl expanded
For cost-accounting gains;
Broad, busy bulldozed acres
Once wastes of fern and trees
Now rapidly enriching
Investors overseas.

and conlcudes, in a stanza I find fitting given recent racist rallies in Australia:

A democratic country!
Where, safe from fear’s attacks
Earth’s children all are equal
(Save yellows, browns and blacks).
Though Man in Space adventure,
Invade the planets nine,
What shall we find to equal
This sunburnt land of mine?
(You can find the whole poem here.)

Do you have a favourite poem parody? I’d love to hear about it.

In the meantime, if you are looking for more poetry goodness, today’s Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Carol’s Corner. poetry-friday-logo

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