Poetry Friday: My Country, and a Parody
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:
by Dorothea Mackellar
Stanza 2
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. 
Christmas Sale
Christmas is coming! To celebrate, I am having a little sale of three of my books which you probably won’t find in any bookstores. What better gift for a child than a book – and a book signed by the author is extra special.
You can order by emailing me through my contact page, and I will get it in the mail straight away.
Books on Special
Snowy’s Christmas
Click for more info
Snowy’s Christmas
An Australian Christmas story.
$16
signed and posted anywhere in Australia
Doggie Duo
Click for more info
Doggy Duo
(My first ever trade book)
$5
signed and posted anywhere in Australia
Head Hog
Click for more info
Head Hog
A fun picture book.
$16
signed and posted anywhere in Australia
Postage: These prices include postage within Australia. If you are overseas, I can give you a quote on postage.
Payment: I accept Paypal or direct bank deposit (Australia only).
Other Books: Yes, I do have stock of most of my other books. Contact me.
Poetry Friday: Tyger Tyger and the Importance of Pleasure
I’ve spent quite a bit of time lately writing and speaking about children’s poetry and the challenges of getting poetry in front of chidlren, especially in Australia where very little chidlden’s poetry is published. One of the things I keep saying is that kids need accessible poetry, and that we must be sure to include contemporary poetry in our offerings.
BUT, that doesn’t mean that I think we should only offer contemporary poetry, just as it isn’t necessary to only offer contemporary fiction. It’s just that when we offer classic poetry, we need to be sure that it is accessible to readers. One of the problems is that too often we offer poetry with difficult language and then too quickly ask what the poem means. My strong feeling is that, modern or classic, our first point of discussion for any poem should be about how it makes the reader feel, rather than about what it means. The pleasure, the physical response, the emotions aroused, the confusion are all so much for important than knowing exactly what it’s about (and a good poem should not be about just one thing anyway).
So ,take for example this old favourite of mine:
Tyger Tyger
by William Blake
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
(you can read the rest of the poem here)
Woah. There are some big words (immortal symmetry?). There are some very old words (thine, thy?). There is a word with funny spelling (tyger). And there are some words which don’t rhyme as we pronounce them today (eye/symmetry). And yet when I read it, I can imagine a beautiful, big, fearsome looking tiger, and can tingle with pleasure at the rhythm and flow of the lines. And, if I read it aloud to (or even better with) children, I give them the chance to share that pleasure. If instead, I print it out, give to to kids and ask them what it means, many eyes would glaze over, and hearts sink at the difficult language and the quest for a right answer.
My point? If you’re a teacher – don’t be scared to share poetry with kids. Share classics like this one. Share contemporary poetry too. But share it. Enjoy it. Savour it. If you must take it apart to look at meanings or poetic devices, do that AFTER you have had time to enjoy the poem. The child who has enjoyed the poem will find the seeking of meaning a whole lot easier.
Today’s Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted at Wee Words for Wee Ones.
Head over there to see what other poetry goodness is scattered around the blogospher.
Remembrance Day
Today is Remembrance Day and, like many other people in Australia and around the world, at 11 am I will stop and remember all those who have died in war.
Although we can do this any time, Australians have two particular days on which they do particularly pause to remember – ANZAC Day, April 25 and Remembrance Day, November 11. While the first is important, the special thing about Remembrance Day is that it isn’t just Australians who do it, and it isn’t just Australians we remember. Remembrance Day is observed on the date that the armistice was signed to end hostilities in Word War 1, and is observed around the world – in countries including Canada, Britain, France and more. In the USA it’s known as Veteran’s Day.
I love the idea that around the world people are stopping and thinking of the lives that have been lost, the lives changed, the lives wasted by war. It’s important that we rememember – not to glorify war, not to celebrate ‘victories’ (does anyone ever win in war?) but so that, in remembring the past we remind ourselves of the need to keep working for peace.
All the men, women and children who have died must mean something and, as world citizens, we need to be striving to make the world a better place.
Lest We Forget.
Why I Love Poetry Friday
This is what I was doing last Friday.
I missed Poetry Friday last week because I was off having an amazing time at the Celebrate Reading Conference in Fremantle (did I say amazing? I mean really really stupendously amazing!).
It’s not the first time I’ve missed Poetry Friday since I started doing it earlier this year, and it probably won’t be the last, and there are some weeks where Friday comes and I think “oops” and I rush to get something suitable posted. This week I got to Thursday afternoon before I thought ‘now what am I going to write about this week?’ And, because I was about to rush out the door to do the school pick up, I wondered if maybe I’d give it a miss again this week.
But, as I drove around town doing pick ups, drops offs and errands, I got thinking about why I joined in Poetry Friday in the first place, and how much I’ve learnt from writing posts myself and reading other people’s posts, and the fun I’ve had, and I knew I had to come home and put together this post. So here you have it: Why I Love Poetry Friday
- I love poetry. And Fridays. And Poetry Friday celebrates both of those things.
- I love discovering new poems, poets, collections, verse novels, poetic forms. There is always something new to discover.
- I love the way Poetry Friday puts so much focus on (of course) poetry, which often struggles for air time.
- I love the way being part of Poetry Friday encourages me to blog about poetry every week (or nearly every week – and I love that if I miss a week, that’s okay, too)
- I love that I am connecting with poets and poetry lovers from around the world on a weekly basis and, as a result learning not just about poetry but about stuff happening in far flung places.
So much love! Which made me think I should finish off with a poem. It’s more than a wee bit corny, but here’s my love poem for Poetry Friday, with apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee for the way you share poetic heights
Of friends and strangers, folk far out of sight
For the joy you give, the peace and grace.
I love thee for the poems of everydays
For offerings shared and read from morn till-night
I love thee freely, as poets strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old joys, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I’ll never lose
With poet’s truth – I love the joy you give,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! – you chase the blues,
I shall but love as long as I shall live.
Okay, it’s a bit OTT, but I do really like Poetry Friday, which this week is being hosted by Write. Sketch. Repeat. Pop over there if you have some time and click though to some of the other wonderful poetry posts.
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