It’s Poetry Friday and I have had a super poetic week. I have been lucky enough to spend time with young writers running poetry writing masterclasses, courtesy of the Literature Centre and which I will write more about in a separate post.
Then, on Wednesday a lovely thing was announced. I am now a Patron of the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards, a nationwide poetry writing contest for school aged writers. Here’s the announcement.
It makes me sound quite good, doesn’t it????
Though I am very humbled to be asked to do this, I am also very very excited. Poetry, writing and young people are my life’s work! If I can play any role in inspiring children to read and write poetry, I will. So when I was asked to be a Patron – after I picked myself up off the floor – I said a very emphatic YES.
SO, to celebrate, I thought it might be nice to share Mackellar’s best known poem, which I not only remember learning by rote in school, but also remember learning to sing it for a royal visit (which at the time was very exciting, though these days I am firmly of the belief Australia should become a republic). Here it is:
My Country
by Dorothea Mackellar
The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
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 forest
All 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-tops
And 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 again
The 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 greenness
That 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 country
My homing thoughts will fly.
And here you can hear it read by the poet, with images that try to capture the essence of the words:
And here you can read more of her work
If you are in Australia and are a teacher or parent of school aged young people, do encourage them to consider entering the competition for 2023, which is now open. There is an optional theme, The Winding Road, and all the details can be found here.
And now, this patron is off to patronise the rest of the Poetry Friday posts for today. No winding roads – if you want to join me, you can head straight to Tanita’s website where you will find the Roundup.
Congratulations – not just on your Patron-age, but for your lifelong passion and commitment to poetry and children!
These words strike a chord in my country:
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains
Wow! Many congratulations! What a wonderful position for you…and the benefits to young people too. ‘I love a sunburnt country.’ Great line. I’ve just got to get there someday!
You do indeed Linda!
What an AMAZING honor! CONGRATULATIONS!!
Thank you Anastasia!
Sally, congratulations on this special honor! Your enthusiasm is contagious. All the best as you patronize poetry for Australian children. I enjoyed listening to Mackellar read her poem.
Thank you Denise, and thanks for visiting.
Sally, congratulations! A well-deserved honor and an awesome responsibility. They made you “sound quite good” because you are! 😀
That’s lovely of you Karen
Congratulations! Go forth and do (even MORE) good work for poetry and children!
Thank you Mary Lee
Sincere congratulations on honour and recognition, Sally. Each year I encourage teachers and their young poets to enter this competition, so you have my spririted cooperation. Like you, I recall reciting and singing these iconic words during my primary school days. When I lived and worked overseas, I often found myself revisiting Dorothea Mackellar’s words-‘…Though earth holds many splendours/Wherever I may die/I know to what brown country/My homing thoughts will fly.’
Thank you for sharing your own memories Alan, and for encouraging young people to enter the contest.
Drum roll please, C-O-N-G-R-A-T-U-L-A-T-I-O-N-S Sally, on your PATRON appointment, Fantastic–How wonderful!!! Thanks for sharing Dorothea Mackellar’s poem too!
Thanks for making me smile Michelle x
First, cheers and congratulations!! You and your patronage, together in your beautifully evocative “opal-hearted land” will be a great match. I stand in awe of elementary school you learning that entire poem by heart. That’s a great one to know, though. I love that it is sung, just like “My Country, ’tis of Thee,” which is also a poem.
Thanks Tanita. It is a good poem to know, and having it set to music makes it easy to retain imho.
Sally, what an honor and a deserved one! You inspire me. The poem you shared by MacKellar reminds me of how much I love the familiar land, the sky and everything about the place I live and know. I often think of that.
Thank you Janice. By chance this week I ran a writing workshop which was about writing poems about home towns – I didn’t see the connection to this news until I sat down to do my PF post.
Thank you for sharing this poem, Sally, and congratulations on all of your good news.
Like Irene, I love the section that begins, “I love a sunburnt country.”
That’s my favourite too, Laura – and also how the song version begins.
“I love a sunburnt country.” Love! Congratulations, Sally! What a gift you are to the world!
Thank you Irene. That is such a lovely thing to say.
Congratulations, Sally. That’s a match made in poetry. 🙂
Thanks Kat – and congrats to your own exciting news this week 🙂