Introducing Canadian Poetry

Australian language, letters and literature in Australia has been influenced by Aboriginal storytelling, convict tales and the desire by colonists to relate their experiences in a new country.Some of those early works have remained part of the Australian ethos. Marcus Clarke's    For the term of his natural life , for example, is still being published today, more than 100 years after it was written.Similarly, the bush ballads of Henry Lawson and Andrew 'Banjo' Paterson have become so ingrained in Australian history, that most Australians are word-perfect when singing Waltzing Matilda . C J Dennis's The Sentimental Bloke remains another favourite with its use of slang language.The letters of Judith Wright, published as With Love and Fury (2006) explore the complex relationships that fed the poet's creative life. The correspondence with Jack McKinney (later her husband) between 1945-46, coincides with the most fertile periods of her poetic career.

Early Poetry:

       From the 1830s, distinctive early Australian poetic voices began to emerge. Charles Harpur was regarded as the country's leading poet. Harpur wrote of the solitude and grandeur of a landscape that dwarfs its people. Henry Kendall, encouraged by Harpur, was the first Australian poet to draw his inspiration from the life, landscape and traditions of Australian, and its influence on human beings. George Gordon McCrae incorporated Aboriginal themes into his poetry. The English-born Adam Lindsay Gordon, with his Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes (1870), 'revitalised the traditional ballad form by infusing it with bush themes'.The names of early Australian poets and authors are well known today. Indeed they conjure images of a time of exploration, adventure and excitement, as well as a poignant reminder of the hardships of living in the newly formed colonies. Adam Lindsay Gordon, Dorothea MacKellar, Harry 'Breaker' Morant, Barcroft Boake, Henry Kendall and Henry Handel Richardson, chronicled the early settlement days in poetry and prose.

Modern poets:

                Modern Australian poets were influenced both by the 'literary nationalism' of the late 1890s which espoused Australian values as well as the contemporary modernist writings which challenged writers to use their imagination and be innovative in describing what was 'real'. AD Hope and Judith Wright were seen as the giants of post war poetry circles in Australia. Hope wrote about love, faith and spirituality. Wright was regarded as 'marvelously lucid ... rich and clear' as well as being the first white Australian poet to publicly name and explore the experiences of its Indigenous people.In the 1950s and 1960s, Melbourne verse expressed a solemn, ironic, concern for social and moral issues and, in the work of Vincent Buckley and Chris Wallace Crabb, an academic literariness. Whereas in Sydney, where Kenneth Slessor, R D Fitzgerald and Douglas Steward were influential, a more relaxed, popular, and various style of poetry flourished. Kenneth Slessor was probably the most talented poet to have written in Australia at this time.Other influential poets outside of the east coast capitals were the 'Sandgropers and Islanders' - Dorothy Hewett (1923 - 2002) and Jack Davis (1917 - 2000) from the sand country of Western Australian and Oodgeroo (Kath Walker) (of the tribe Noonuccal) (1920 - 1995), born Kathleen Jean Mary Ruska, on Minjerribah, of the Stradbroke Islands.

John Tranter describes the focus of the 1980s and 1990s in Sydney as being a mood 'of passive recollection' which tells of an 'adult life tormented by decay, women gained and lost and dead animals'. Dorothy Hewett's Greenhouse (1980) has love and betrayal, death, travel, politics and passion as its subjects.Dorothy Porter is credited with Australian poetry making a comeback in the late 1990s by re-visiting one of the oldest forms of literature - the verse novel. David Malouf's first poetry collection in 26 years, Typewriter Music, was released at the Sydney Writers Festival in June 2007, selling out of its print run of 3,000 in three days.Other leading contemporary poets include: Les Murray, John Tranter, Fay Zwicky and Billy Marshall-Stoneking and Indigenous authors Bobby Sykes and Samuel Wagan Watson.