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Sally Murphy, Australian author

Teacher Tuesday: World Poetry Day

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It’s Teacher and it’s also World Poetry Day. A whole day just to celebrate poetry!

So, here’s a poem from me that you can use in your classroom, or just listen to for your self:

And here it is written down so you can see the patterns, and perhaps use as a mentor text:

Milkshake

by Sally Murphy

The sea’s been churning icecream

Though it’s too salty to eat

It’s been rolling rolling rolling

In an icy wintry beat.

 

The sea’s been frothing milkshakes

Though they’re briny to the taste

It’s been mixing mixing mixing

With a hustle and a haste

 

The sea’s been blending smoothies

Though they’re not for you or me

It’s been churning churning churning

In a chilly stormy spree

 

The sea’s now washing dishes

With a bubble and a slosh

See it scrubbing scrubbing scrubbing

In its busy midday wash.

(copyright Sally Murphy, 2016)

 

World Poetry Day is a wonderful day to think about poetry – but also to think about entering the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards.  You can do this as a whole class activity or you might make it optional. Either way, what a wonderful, authentic way to help your young poets have their work read by a published poet (the judges are both established poets) and, of course, the chance to win a prize.

If you’d like hints or tips on ways to to write poetry for the awards or any other time, you’ll find lots here on my website, but feel free to ask questions in the comments.

Have a wonderful World Poetry Day!

Poetry Friday: Dorothea Mackellar

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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.

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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