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Silence of the poets – has an ancient tradition of commemorative verse died with the Queen?

Not so long ago, the death of a monarch would have been a cue for outpourings of elegies and poetic commemorations. One might have thought the end of the second Elizabethan era would prompt something similar – but apparently not. So far, the death of Queen Elizabeth II has had only a muted response from our poets, both in the United Kingdom and here in Aotearoa New Zealand. Does this reflect shifting priorities in the national imagination? Are we witnessing the demise of poetry on public occasions? We need only look back at the death in 1936 of the queen’s grandfather, George V, for comparison. <a href="https://backwatersman.wordpress.com/2009/12/27/the-death-of-king-george-v/">John Betjeman</a> and <a href="https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10105234">John Masefield</a> were among the poets who marked the occasion. Betjeman was England’s poet laureate from 1972 until his death in 1984, and also wrote on the <a href="https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10038138">birthday of the queen mother</a> and the <a href="https://www.poetryexplorer.net/poem.php?id=10038137">marriage of Charles and Diana</a>. Betjeman stood in a long line of British poet laureates stretching back unbroken to John Dryden in 1668, and to poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer before that. But the culture of poetry responding to monarchs’ deaths has flourished outside the official post, too. The unexpected death in 1612 of the 18-year-old Prince Henry, son and heir to James VI and I, prompted an <a href="https://specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk/?p=3553">outpouring of poetic tears</a>. <a href="https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/elegy-upon-untimely-death-incomparable-prince-henry">John Donne</a> wrote an elegy, as did George Herbert, John Webster and Sir Walter Raleigh. <h2>Elegiac energy</h2> Particularly voluminous was the the flood of poetry that met the execution of King Charles I at the height of the English Civil Wars in 1649. His <a href="https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw35443/The-execution-of-King-Charles-I">dramatic beheading</a> on a scaffold erected outside Whitehall Palace made him a martyr to his loyal followers. Literary historian Nigel Smith has described the way elegy became a royalist genre, as the death of the king “sucked all elegiac energy into its own subject”. And there are close connections nearby to these elegies on King Charles I. Melbourne’s State Library Victoria holds the <a href="https://www.slv.vic.gov.au/search-discover/explore-collections-theme/history-book/emmerson-collection">John Emmerson collection</a> of over 5,000 early modern English books, among which poems, pamphlets and other <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-04-16/king-charles-1-trial-and-executed-news-of-the-time/6391990">publications on the death of Charles I</a> feature prominently. Poetic treasures in the collection include a copy of Monumentum Regale: Or a Tombe, Erected for that Incomparable and Glorious Monarch, Charles the First, a volume of elegies and poetic “sighs” and “groans” published three months after the king’s execution. Royalist poets grapple with how they can possibly commemorate an “incomparable” king. The Earl of Montrose declares he has written his poem with “blood”, “wounds” and the point of his sword. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Alexander Turnbull Library is famous for its collection of works by a poet from the other side of the 17th-century political divide, John Milton. <a href="https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2t53/turnbull-alexander-horsburgh">Turnbull</a> (1868–1918) had a personal interest in Milton, an ardent republican. Even Turnbull’s collection, however, contains a notable number of volumes celebrating Charles I, including multiple editions of Eikon Basilike (The King’s Book), which represented Charles I as a Christ-like martyr. <h2>Public poetry isn’t dead</h2> This vast body of public poetry about previous monarchs is in sharp contrast to the response to Queen Elizabeth II’s death. Even in the United Kingdom, the current poet laureate, Simon Armitage, seems to have struggled. The form of his poem “Floral Tribute”, an acrostic on the name “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/13/floral-tribute-poem-queen-elizabeth-simon-armitage-poet-laureate">Elizabeth</a>”, seems archaic at best and banal at worst. New Zealand’s poet laurate, Chris Tse, inaugurated only a few weeks ago, has been notably silent. When I asked him why, he said writing a poem for the queen “would be a backwards step in terms of where I want the role to go”. Tse’s reticence perhaps echoes the complicated thoughts of Selina Tusitala Marsh, a recent former laureate, on <a href="https://www.read-nz.org/aotearoa-reads-details/nz-poet-selina-tusitala-marsh-visits-and-sasses-the-queen">performing her poem</a> “Unity” for the queen in 2016. For Marsh, the British Crown’s colonial legacy (as she put it, “Her peeps also colonised my peeps”) made writing and performing the poem a complex commission to accept. As laureate, Marsh preferred to write poems on occasions such as <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/books/22-06-2018/the-friday-poem-jacinda-and-clarke-and-the-baby-and-us-by-the-nz-poet-laureate">the birth of a prime ministerial baby</a>. But the fact New Zealand even has a <a href="http://www.poetlaureate.org.nz/">poet laureate</a> in 2022 suggests there is still an appetite for public poetry, even if the days of poems on the death of a queen are numbered. The modern monarchy itself, of course, provides rich material for poetry of a less commemorative kind. Bill Manhire, New Zealand’s inaugural laureate, speculated on Twitter that we are awaiting an acrostic on “Andrew”. And the most remarkable poem of the morning we awoke to news of the queen’s death was essa may ranapiri’s “<a href="https://twitter.com/ired0mi/status/1567977694348058624">The Queen is Dead</a>”. Immediate and visceral, it’s an unabashed anti-colonialist spit in the face of monarchy. Some will find it shocking, others will gasp with appreciation. But even those taken aback by its frank approach and timing may share the sense of distance it captures, in its formal displacement of the news from afar by scrambled eggs, spring sunlight and the joy of quotidian love as a new day begins. Public poetry isn’t dead. But our poets’ responses to the death of the queen – the silent, the awkward, the confrontational – tell us much, as ever, about the societies we live in. Image credits: Getty Images This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/silence-of-the-poets-has-an-ancient-tradition-of-commemorative-verse-died-with-the-queen-190834" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>.

Art

New book claims man from Snowy River “had to be Aboriginal”

The man from Snowy River from Banjo Paterson’s famous poem has always been depicted as a white man, but one author claims the character was based on an Indigenous stockman. The 1890 poem regales the story of a runaway horse, with various stockmen pursuing the colt and attempting to separate it from a herd of brumbies. When the wild horses descend an apparently impassable slope, the man from Snowy River is the only one who continues the chase. In The Brumby Wars, author and Walkley Award-winning journalist Anthony Sharwood claims that the poem indicates the story takes place in the Byadbo region of the Snowy Mountains, where he says all the local stockmen were Indigenous. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Brumbies. A vision of the legendary Man from Snowy Riveror a spectre of ecosystems destroyed by feral pests? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheBrumbyWars?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#TheBrumbyWars</a> by <a href="https://twitter.com/antsharwood?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@antsharwood</a> is the riveting account of a major national issue and the very human passions it inspires. Out now: <a href="https://t.co/WF0FKMsEHu">https://t.co/WF0FKMsEHu</a> <a href="https://t.co/Gh8je2ciRa">pic.twitter.com/Gh8je2ciRa</a> — Hachette Australia Books (@HachetteAus) <a href="https://twitter.com/HachetteAus/status/1432938770370727940?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 1, 2021</a></blockquote> His theory relies on lines from the poem’s final stanza, which mention an area near Mount Kosciuszko “where the pine-clad ridges raise”. Sharwood said Byadbo is “the only part of Australia’s alpine region and nearby foothills with cypress pine forests, a native conifer that thrives in dry country”. “If the poem were sourced from stories of the Byadbo area, then the stockman had to be Aboriginal because all the best riders in the area had Indigenous blood,” he said. In his newly-released book, Sharwood considers the controversial case for reducing brumby numbers due to their overgrazing of national parks, versus the calls to protect them because of their romanticised image. “Forget that Patterson knew they were pests and advocated for them to be shot to protect the pasture for cattle,” Sharwood said. “The brumbies are characters in the poem and that makes them sacred, eternal, untouchable, as quintessentially Australian as Vegemite and thongs.” However, Sharwood isn’t the first to suggest the titular character was Indigenous. In 1988, Victoria’s official historian Bernard Barrett proposed the character may have been based on a young Indigenous rider named Toby, with Barrett claiming “a better rider never sat a horse”. <img style="width: 500px; height: 331.0546875px;" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/7843655/gettyimages-542638958.jpg" alt="" data-udi="umb://media/cb8bd6984579401690c748346937c534" /> Image: Getty Images Professor Jakelin Troy, director of Aboriginal research at the University of Sydney and an Aboriginal Australian from the Ngarigu community of the Snowy Mountains, said we may never know who the rider was based on. “I don’t think any of us really care who the man, or woman, from Snowy River was, but it is an interesting thing to explore because it definitely plays into the mythology of the area,” she said. “One piece of research says he was my father’s great uncle called Jim Troy. “Banjo stayed with the family and Jim Troy fits the description even down to the horse. They bred them tough like their horses were a mixture of Timor pony which are really tough and thoroughbreds with a bit of Arab to make them a bit finer. The horses were a mixed breed … We will probably never know who the actual person was.” <a rel="noopener" href="https://www.hachette.com.au/anthony-sharwood/the-brumby-wars-the-battle-for-the-soul-of-australia" target="_blank">The Brumby Wars</a> was released on Wednesday, August 1 by Hachette. Image: Getty Images

Books

A beginner’s guide to reading and enjoying poetry

One of the things you get asked most when people find out that you’re a poet is whether you can recommend something that could be read at an upcoming wedding, or if you know something that might be suitable for a funeral. For most people, these occasions – as well as their schooldays – are the only times they encounter poetry. That feeds into this sense that poetry is something formal, something which might stand to attention in the corner of the room, that it’s something to be studied or something to “solve” rather than something to be lounged with on the sofa. Of course, this needn’t be true. We’ve seen over the past couple of months how important poetry can be to people. It’s forming a response in advertisements and marketing campaigns, it’s becoming a regular part of the public’s honouring of frontline heroes and, for people who write poetry more often, it’s becoming a way to create a living historical document of these unprecedented times – this latter point was the aim of the new <a href="https://www2.mmu.ac.uk/write/">Write where we are Now project</a>, spearheaded by poet Carol Ann Duffy and Manchester Metropolitan University. In years to come, alongside medical records and political reporting, historians and classes of schoolchildren will look to art and poetry to find out what life was like on a day-to-day basis – what things seemed important, what things worried people, how the world looked and felt and was experienced. Write where we are Now will, hopefully, be one such resource, with poets from all over the world contributing new work directly about the Coronavirus pandemic or about the personal situations they find themselves in right now. <iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/407507872" width="500" height="281" frameborder="0" webkitallowfullscreen="" mozallowfullscreen="" allowfullscreen=""></iframe> So the crisis has perhaps brought poetry – with its ability to make the abstract more concrete, its ability to distil and clarify, its ability to reflect the surreal and strange world we now find ourselves in – back to the fore. Many of you might be thinking now is the time to try and get to grips with poetry, maybe for the first time. A novel might feel too taxing, watching another film just involves staring at another screen for longer, but a poem can offer a brief window into a different world, or simply help to sustain you in this one. How to enjoy poetry If you’re nervous around poetry or are scared it might not be for you, I wanted to offer up some tips. 1. You don’t have to like it Poetry is often taught in very strange ways: you’re given a poem and told that it’s good – and that if you don’t think it’s good then you haven’t understood it, and you should read it again until you have, and then you’ll like it. This is nonsense. There are poets and poems for every taste. If you don’t like something, fine. Move on. Find another poet. Anthologies are great for this, and a good place to start with your poetry journey. 2. Read it aloud Poetry lives on the air and not on the page, read it aloud to yourself as you walk around the house, you’ll get a better understanding of it, you’ll feel the rhythms of the language move you in different ways – even if you’re not quite sure what’s going on. 3. Don’t try and solve it This is something else that goes back to our educational encounters with poetry – poems are not riddles that need solving. Some poems will speak to you very plainly. Some poems will simply move you through their language. Some poems will baffle you but, like an intriguing stranger, you’ll want to step closer to them. Poems aren’t a problem to be wrestled with – mostly poems are showing you one small thing as a way of talking about something bigger. Poems aren’t a broken pane of glass that you need to painstakingly reassemble. They’re a window, asking you to look out, trying to show you something. 4. Write your own The best way to understand poetry is to write your own. The way you speak, the street you live on, the life you’ve lived, is as worthy of poetry as anything else. Once you begin to explore your own writing, you’ll be able to read and understand other people’s poems much better. I would say this as a poet, but poetry is going to be even more central to how we rebuild after this current crisis. Poetry, especially the teaching of how we might write it, has this wonderful ability to create a new language, to imagine new ways of seeing things, to help people to articulate what it is that they’ve just been through. The way we move forward, as a community, as a society and, in fact, as a civilisation, is to push language to new frontiers, to use language to memorialise, reimagine and rebuild, but also to remember that poetry can be an escape, something to be enjoyed, something to cherish. With that in mind here is a poem I wrote for Write where we are Now.<img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important; text-shadow: none !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/137321/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /> <img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/331106/original/file-20200428-110779-1fegtkr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" alt="" /> <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/andrew-mcmillan-535042">Andrew McMillan</a>, Senior Lecturer, Department of English, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/manchester-metropolitan-university-860">Manchester Metropolitan University</a> This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-beginners-guide-to-reading-and-enjoying-poetry-137321">original article</a>.

Books

A thousand yarns and snapshots – why poetry matters during a pandemic

Why do we have the arts? Why do they seem to matter so much? It is all very well muttering something vague about eternal truths and spiritual values. Or even gesturing toward Bach and Leonardo da Vinci, along with our own Patrick White. But what can the poets make of, and for, our busy, present lives? What do they have to say during grave crises? Well, they can speak eloquently to their readers for life, in writing from the very base of their own experiences. Every generation has laid claim, afresh, to its vital modernity. In the 17th century, Andrew Marvell did so with witty lyrical elegance in his verse <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44688/to-his-coy-mistress">To a Coy Mistress</a>. Three centuries later, the <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rene-char">French poet René Char</a> thought of us as weaving tapestries against the threat of extinction. Accordingly, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1668153.Hypnos_Waking">he wrote</a>: The poet is not angry at the hideous extinction of death, but confident of his own particular touch, he transforms everything into long wools. In short, the poet will, at best, weave lasting, memorable, salvific tapestries out of words. The poems in question will come out live, if the poet is lucky, and possibly as disparate as the sleepy, furred animals caged in Melbourne Zoo. What is truly touching or intimate need not be tapped by elegies, for all that they can fill a mortal need. Yet the great modern poet <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden">W. H. Auden</a> <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Iae_YsTmAT8C&pg=PA231&lpg=PA231&dq=%22only+one+object+in+his+world+which+is+at+once+sacred+and+hated%22&source=bl&ots=Ib10mT6Q8x&sig=ACfU3U38Y8tHrdfsSqHYljJa1Rz9RdHG8Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwipmZGf4rTpAhVF7HMBHU2NDFkQ6AEwAHoECAEQAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false">wrote in memory</a> of poet, writer and broadcaster John Betjeman: There is one, only one object in his world which is at once sacred and hated, but it is far too formidable to be satirizable: namely Death. As William Wordsworth and Judith Wright both well knew, in their separate generations – and quite polar cultures – the best poetry grasps moments of our ordinary lives, and renders them memorable. Poetry can give us back our dailiness in musical technicolour: in a thousand yarns or snapshots. Poems sing to us that life really matters, now. That can emerge as songs or satires, laments, landscapes or even somebody’s portrait done in imaginative words. Yes, verse at its finest is living truth “done” in verbal art. The great Russian playwright Anton Chekhov once insisted “nothing ever happens later”, and the point of poetry in our own time – as always, at its best – is surely to shine the light of language on what is happening now. The devil is in the detail, yes. But so is the redemptive beauty, along with “the prophetess Deborah under her palm-tree” in the words of the Australian poet, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/glutton-for-words-crafted-rare-prose-20120702-21d2a.html">Peter Steele</a>. Poetry sees the palm tree, and the prophetess herself, vividly, even in the middle of a widespread epidemic. Modern poetry is an art made out of living language. In these times, at least, it tends to be concise, barely spilling over the end of the page: too tidy for that, unlike the vast memorised narratives of the Israelites, the Greeks or even the Icelanders. But what it shares with the ancient, oral cultures is its connection with wisdom, crystallising nodes of value, fables of the tribe, moments or decades that made us all. In the brief age of a national pandemic, poetry’s role and its duties may come to seem all the more important: all the more civil and politically sane. The poem – even in the case when it is quite a short lyric, even if comic – carries the message of moral responsibility in its saddle bag. Perhaps all poets do, even when they are also charming the pants off their willing readers. Written by Christopher Wallace-Crabbe. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-thousand-yarns-and-snapshots-why-poetry-matters-during-a-pandemic-138723">The Conversation</a>.

Caring

“I want to stare death in the eye”: why dying inspires so many writers and artists

It may seem paradoxical, but dying can be a deeply creative process. Public figures, authors, artists and journalists have long written about their experience of dying. But why do they do it and what do we gain? Many stories of dying are written to bring an issue or disease to public attention. For instance, English editor and journalist Ruth Picardie’s description of terminal breast cancer, so poignantly described in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/424646.Before_I_Say_Goodbye">Before I say Goodbye</a>, drew attention to the impact of medical negligence, and particularly misdiagnosis, on patients and their families. American tennis player and social activist Arthur Ashe wrote about his heart disease and subsequent diagnosis and death from AIDS in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/698054.Days_of_Grace">Days of Grace: A Memoir</a>. His autobiographical account brought public and political attention to the risks of blood transfusion (he acquired HIV from an infected blood transfusion following heart bypass surgery). Other accounts of terminal illness lay bare how people navigate uncertainty and healthcare systems, as surgeon Paul Kalanithi did so beautifully in <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25899336-when-breath-becomes-air">When Breath Becomes Air</a>, his account of dying from lung cancer. But, perhaps most commonly, for artists, poets, writers, musicians and journalists, dying can provide <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25733900-the-violet-hour">one last opportunity for creativity</a>. American writer and illustrator Maurice Sendak drew people he loved as they were dying; founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud, while in great pain, refused pain medication so he could be lucid enough to think clearly about his dying; and author Christopher Hitchens <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Hitch_22.html?id=H6nbV6nLcWcC&redir_esc=y">wrote about</a> dying from <a href="https://www.cancer.org.au/about-cancer/types-of-cancer/oesophageal-cancer.html">oesophageal cancer</a> despite increasing symptoms: I want to stare death in the eye. Faced with terminal cancer, renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote, if possible, more prolifically than before. And Australian author Clive James found dying a mine of new material: Few people read Poetry any more but I still wish To write its seedlings down, if only for the lull Of gathering: no less a harvest season For being the last time. Research shows what dying artists have told us for centuries – creative self-expression is core to their sense of self. So, creativity has <a href="https://www.headspace.com/blog/2017/04/18/grief-creativity-together/">therapeutic and existential benefits</a> for the dying and their grieving families. Creativity <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jocb.171">provides</a> a buffer against anxiety and negative emotions about death. It may help us make sense of events and experiences, tragedy and misfortune, as a graphic novel did for cartoonist Miriam Engelberg in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060789732/cancer-made-me-a-shallower-person/">Cancer Made Me A Shallower Person</a>, and as <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MkcGiLeATe8C&oi=fnd&pg=PP2&dq=%5BCarla+Sofka+and+Illene+Cupit+(eds)++Dying,+Death,+and+Grief+in+an+Online+Universe:+For+Counselors+and+Educators,+Springer+2012&ots=vdXYa_3cvU&sig=Od3eQ4A7_hadLwgIn4liIEoyo5c&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%5BCarla%20Sofka%20and%20Illene%20Cupit%20(eds)%20%20Dying%2C%20Death%2C%20and%20Grief%20in%20an%20Online%20Universe%3A%20For%20Counselors%20and%20Educators%2C%20Springer%202012&f=false">blogging and online writing</a>does for so many. Creativity may give voice to our experiences and provide some resilience as we face disintegration. It may also provide agency (an ability to act independently and make our own choices), and a sense of normality. French doctor Benoit Burucoa <a href="https://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=INKA_181_0005">wrote</a> art in palliative care allows people to feel physical and emotional relief from dying, and: […] to be looked at again and again like someone alive (without which one feels dead before having disappeared). A way of communicating to loved ones and the public When someone who is dying creates a work of art or writes a story, this can open up otherwise difficult conversations with people close to them. But where these works become public, this conversation is also with those they do not know, whose only contact is through that person’s writing, poetry or art. This public discourse is a means of living while dying, making connections with others, and ultimately, increasing the public’s “<a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29402101">death literacy</a>”. In this way, our <a href="https://www.thegroundswellproject.com/">conversations about death</a> become <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-end-9781742752051">more normal, more accessible</a> and much richer. There is no evidence reading literary works about death and dying fosters <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumination_(psychology)">rumination</a> (an unhelpful way of dwelling on distressing thoughts) or other forms of psychological harm. In fact, the evidence we have suggests the opposite is true. There is plenty of <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg/arts-and-palliative-care-dying-and-bereavement">evidence</a> for the positive impacts of both making and consuming art (of all kinds) at the <a href="http://www.artshealthandwellbeing.org.uk/appg-inquiry/Briefings/WWCW.pdf">end of life</a>, and specifically <a href="https://spcare.bmj.com/content/7/3/A369.2">surrounding palliative care</a>. Why do we buy these books? Some people read narratives of dying to gain insight into this mysterious experience, and empathy for those amidst it. Some read it to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/18/opinion/sunday/the-neuroscience-of-your-brain-on-fiction.html">rehearse</a> their own journeys to come. But these purpose-oriented explanations miss what is perhaps the most important and unique feature of literature – its delicate, multifaceted capacity to help us become what philosopher <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/07/25/martha-nussbaums-moral-philosophies">Martha Nussbaum</a> <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/2026358.pdf?seq=1">described as</a>: […] finely aware and richly responsible. Literature can capture the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/apr/01/londonreviewofbooks">tragedy</a> in ordinary lives; its depictions of <a href="https://partiallyexaminedlife.com/2016/08/12/martha-nussbaum-on-emotions-ethics-and-literature/">grief, anger and fear</a> help us fine-tune what’s important to us; and it can show the <a href="https://books.google.com.au/books/about/Love_s_Knowledge.html?id=oq3POR8FhtgC">value of a unique person</a> across their whole life’s trajectory. Not everyone can be creative towards the end Not everyone, however, has the opportunity for creative self-expression at the end of life. In part, this is because increasingly we die in hospices, hospitals or nursing homes. These are often far removed from the resources, people and spaces that may inspire creative expression. And in part it is because many people cannot communicate after a stroke or dementia diagnosis, or are <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/01/how-do-people-communicate-before-death/580303/">delirious</a>, so are incapable of “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691628554/last-words">last words</a>” <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Final-Gifts-Understanding-Awareness-Communications/dp/1451667256">when they die</a>. Perhaps most obviously, it is also because most of us are not artists, musicians, writers, poets or philosophers. We will not come up with elegant prose in our final days and weeks, and lack the skill to paint inspiring or intensely beautiful pictures. But this does not mean we cannot tell a story, using whatever genre we wish, that captures or at least provides a glimpse of our experience of dying – our fears, goals, hopes and preferences. Clive James <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/sep/01/clive-james-poem-story-mind-heading-obivion">reminded us</a>: “There will still be epic poems, because every human life contains one. It comes out of nowhere and goes somewhere on its way to everywhere – which is nowhere all over again, but leaves a trail of memories. There won’t be many future poets who don’t dip their spoons into all that, even if nobody buys the book.” Written by Claire Hooker and Ian Kerridge. Republished with permission of <a href="https://theconversation.com/i-want-to-stare-death-in-the-eye-why-dying-inspires-so-many-writers-and-artists-128061">The Conversation.</a>

Art

This letter from 1928 might be the most brutal rejection ever

A letter from 1928 has revealed how one aspiring poet was shown no mercy when attempting to be published. The letter was addressed to poet Frederick Charles Meyer and was sent from Sydney publisher Angus and Robertson nearly 90 years ago. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> All other rejection letters can step down. We have a winner. <a href="https://t.co/dQijZsIgqL">pic.twitter.com/dQijZsIgqL</a> — Letters of Note (@LettersOfNote) <a href="https://twitter.com/LettersOfNote/status/937342977105637376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2017</a></blockquote> A picture of the letter was uploaded on the Twitter page Letters of Note by Kylie Parkinson. Meyers had sent Angus and Robertson a sample of his poetry and they did not hold back when criticising his work. “Dear Sir, no you may not send us your verses, and we will not give you the name of another publisher. We hate no rival publisher sufficiently to ask you to inflict them on him,” the letter reads. “The specimen poem is simply awful. In fact, we have never seen worse. Yours faithfully, Angus and Robertson Ltd.” However, Myers was not deterred by the criticism and went on to publish Pearls of the Blue Mountain of Australia one year later. He also published Jewels of Mountains and Snowlines of New Zealand in 1934. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> Incredibly, it looks like F. C. Meyer didn't give up after that punch to the guts. <a href="https://t.co/V0fl8UiacT">pic.twitter.com/V0fl8UiacT</a> — Letters of Note (@LettersOfNote) <a href="https://twitter.com/LettersOfNote/status/937344230762139648?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 3, 2017</a></blockquote> It seems as though Angus and Robertson weren’t the only ones to dislike his work as in 2001 New Zealand magazine Artscape nominated Meyers for the “bad verse and awful poetry competition”. A verse from his poem Maori Maiden was used to justify the nomination: “I think — I understand thee well, Rub my nose now for a spell!” Lines from his poem My Pet Dog were also used: “Pluto! Come here my dearest little dog, Don’t get mixed up with every rogue, And do not run into a fog.”

Books

Waltzing Australia: A bush poem

There’s nothing more patriotic than a rousing rendition of ‘Waltzing Matilda’, sung loudly and proudly at sporting and other events all around the world. It was with this in mind that I sat at the bar of the North Gregory Hotel in Winton, where the song was reportedly sung for the first time, quietly contemplating its effect and impact on so many Australians. Over 120 years have now passed since Banjo Paterson and Christina Macpherson collaborated to produce the words and music of our unofficial national anthem in 1895, and I doubt they could ever have imagined its longevity and popularity. From the little town in far-western Queensland, ‘Waltzing Matilda’ has come to be recognised as the song most widely associated with Australia and its people, both here and overseas, and the one to which we inevitably turn. The passion generated by the stirring tune has been no more evident than in the lead-up to the rugby internationals of the 1990s, when country music artists like James Blundell and John Williamson led the pre-match entertainment by strolling the sidelines while strumming their bush guitars. The sound of fifty-odd thousand voices joining in the chorus, reverberating around the grounds in a unified show of support, was an overwhelming display of national pride. It’s a shame this tradition was abandoned, for it demonstrated the true Australian spirit, and while the crowd may still break out in the old familiar strains from time to time, it is no longer the great ritual it once was. I’ve made reference to those spine-tingling performances in the following poem, as I transfer those same lilting lyrics from the dusty plains of outback Queensland to the lush green rugby fields of Twickenham in London. ‘Waltzing Matilda’ is at the essence of our national identity, and has been for a long time. The song has accompanied us to war, to space, and to every conceivable occasion that calls for camaraderie and comradeship. It was the song, sung by our very own Slim Dusty, that was played from Space Shuttle Columbia as it sailed over Australia on its maiden voyage in 1981. Slim was back on deck for the closing ceremony of the Sydney Olympic Games in 2000, where he sang ‘Waltzing Matilda’ to a crowd of 115,000, and millions of others all around the world. Dating back to 1879, the North Gregory Hotel has a rich history and a long association with the vast outback. Although it’s been ravaged by fire three times, I still see it as the very spot where Banjo would’ve sat all those years ago, gazing out on the same endless plains that stretch to the horizon. As I reflected on his and Christina’s wonderful legacy I travelled back to 1895, imagining the applause and praise for that very first airing of ‘Waltzing Matilda’. In their absence I could only drink a toast to the legend of their timeless tune, and resolve to acknowledge their contribution in a poem I was to call ‘Waltzing Australia’. Waltzing Australia I was sitting out in Winton on a stool beside the bar When a bloke came on the telly with his trusty old guitar With a rousing loud rendition and the punters sang along To a song about a swagman and a western billabong It was international rugby at its quintessential best And that song that he was singing was inspired in the west And it stirred a lot of passion and it fired up the soul And it all began near Winton by a muddy waterhole When Banjo wrote the lyrics by a Diamantina moon And the talented Christina put the ditty to a tune They could never have imagined how the song would play a part In the shaping of our country and in every Aussie heart And I felt the Banjo’s presence from my stool beside the bar As I watched that game of rugby on that foreign field afar And I saw the young Christina with a songbook in her hand While a hundred thousand Aussies were all cheering from the stand Now from sporting fields and stadiums both here and round the world And wherever there’s a contest or an Aussie flag unfurled It’s our unofficial anthem and it’s sung with joy and pride From the cities and the beaches out across the countryside And I cannot help but marvel how the song has been embraced By so many generations and the passion it has placed In the hearts of all Australians when they hear it being sung From the oldest of our people to the youngest of our young From the rolling plains at sundown to that western waterhole To a rugby international when we kick the winning goal It’s the song that bonds Australians and you’ll hear them proudly say It was written out in Queensland and away out Winton way From Twickenham in England to the dusty plains outback From the hallowed turf in London to a swagman on the track It all started here near Winton with the spirit of a soul Who had waltzed his old matilda to a muddy waterhole And I’d like to think the swagman is an avid rugby fan For that song we sing together has immortalised the man When the crowds rise up in chorus and we hold our head up high We can feel the jolly swagman and his spirit waltzing by And I’d like to thank the Banjo for the lyrics that he wrote And his friendship with Christina that all started with a note And that poor forgotten swagman who has left us with a song And whose ghost may waltz forever, by that western billabong. <img width="138" height="189" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/43809/walzing-australia.jpg" alt="Walzing Australia" style="float: right;"/> This is an extract from <a href="http://t.dgm-au.com/c/93981/71095/1880?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.booktopia.com.au%2Fwaltzing-australia-tim-borthwick%2Fprod9780733338410.html" target="_blank">Waltzing Australia</a> by Tim Borthwick, published by ABC Books.

Books

What happens to your brain when you read poetry

Poetry can be uplifting, showcasing the beauty of the human spirit; it can also reveal the darkness of humanity. Poetry can do a lot of things, and it has long been part of our world. It’s why researchers at the University of Exeter were interested in exploring the science behind poetry, and found that poetry does in fact have an effect on the brain. Here are three of their findings. Poetry and music light up the brain in the same way Researchers have found that reading poetry stimulates the right hemisphere of the brain, the same as music. This part of the brain is linked to reward and emotion Poetry stimulates the part of the brain linked to memory Researchers at the University of Exeter got 13 volunteers to read an "extract from a heating installation manual, evocative passages from novels [and] easy and difficult sonnets, as well as their favourite poetry." The regions of the brain linked to memory showed more activity when reading poetry than general reading. Poetry makes us introspective Researchers found that reading poetry stimulates the parts of the brain linked to our resting states. These parts of the brain are active when people are resting and relaxing, and have also been linked to an introspective state of mind.

Mind

Thoughts we’ve all had while waiting in line for the loo

Jacqueline Steyn, 72, finds comfort in expressing herself in stories and poetry. It was not until she reached her seniors year, where age and lived experience gave her the confidence and courage, that she began to showcase her writing. The Lady in Waiting Have you ever gone to a public loo? And had to stand at the end of a queue Have you counted heads to pass the time? Only to find you’re eighth in line Counted four cubicles, one’s out of order Have you dreaded the sound of running water? Have you seen a woman come out in a blush? When embarrassed she said, “The cistern won’t flush.” Only two working loo’s now and you’re still in line You cross your legs and curse the wine Have you practised pelvic floor exercises? And hoped and prayed there are no surprises Please let there be no unexpected leak After having babies the bladder is weak Ever so slowly the queue’s getting shorter That dreaded sound of running water In rushes a pregnant woman with a toddler in tow “It’s urgent please I really must go!” She let out a scream before she spoke Behind the door her waters broke Next enters the cleaner with her mop and her broom She orders you out whilst she cleans the room Have you ever rushed to the Gentlemen’s loo? If you were as desperate what would you do? If you have a story to share please get in touch at <a href="mailto:melody@oversity.com.au">melody@oversity.com.au</a> Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/health/mind/2016/09/jacqueline-steyn-poem-on-getting-older/">A 72-year-old’s moving poem on getting older</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/health/caring/2016/06/poem-highlights-the-beauty-of-ageing/">Poem highlights the beauty of ageing</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.com.au/health/caring/2016/03/wifes-touching-poem-for-sick-husband/">A wife’s touching poem for sick husband</a>

Art

A 72-year-old’s moving poem on getting older

<img width="70" height="94" src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/26824/jackie_70x94.jpg" alt="Jackie" style="float: left;"/>Jacqueline Steyn, 72, finds comfort in expressing herself in stories and poetry. It was not until she reached her seniors year, where age and live experience gave her the confidence and courage, that she began to showcase her writing. Seasons of Life I've reached the autumn of my life Now little bits are falling Boobies reaching for the ground Ears not hearing when you're calling My limbs have somewhat weakened Golden hair has turned to grey I think I hear speak to me But I've forgotten yesterday Flat tummy, tight bum They're all things of the past Brittle bones are part of me now Just like this plaster cast Four eyes not two help me read a book My face has many wrinkles now I'm looking bloody crook When we are out walking If I stumble and fall down Will you reach out and help me With a smile and not a frown Will you look upon me as a nuisance Or a treasure from the past Or some fossilised old lady to gotten rid of fast If you have a story to share please get in touch at <a href="mailto:meldoy@oversixty.com.au">meldoy@oversixty.com.au</a> Related links: <a href="/health/caring/2016/06/18-great-quotes-about-ageing/">18 great quotes about ageing</a> <a href="/health/caring/2016/06/poem-highlights-the-beauty-of-ageing/">Poem highlights the beauty of ageing</a> <a href="/health/caring/2016/05/10-beautiful-quotes-about-grieving/">10 beautiful quotes about grieving</a>

Mind

Poem highlights the beauty of ageing

We all have different approaches to ageing. Some of us like to embrace the changes, while others try to cling to their youth. This stunning poem is so relatable as it truly captures many of the thoughts and fears we have about getting older. Paradox Must I be peaceful in old age, add to the tapestry a few last stitches, self still ravenous? A hawk hovers and my spirit soars, swoops on once vital nerve and sinew, turns cannibal. What else can I devour but my own resinous heart? The young are too young to understand desire, to savour wild strawberries or comprehend the precise artistry of feet that dance on the precipice edge. Barefoot they dance who have no knowledge of frayed ligaments or the eye that cannot bear the depth of height. Now only, when breath comes short, can we assess the clarity of air. The burnt-out season denies, and evokes, the sharp green of new shoots and the dried creek recalls the overflow of rain. Young, we love, grasp, consume. Old, we savour. And the taste sends us wild. What’s your favourite poem? Share it with us in the comments below. Written by Vera Newsom. This is an extract from Falling And Flying: Poems On Ageing, Edited by Judith Beveridge and Dr Susan Ogle, Brandl & Schlesinger. All proceeds from book sales will go directly to the Penney Ageing Research Unit at the Royal North Shore Hospital. For Book sales, please email <a href="mailto:sogle@med.usyd.edu.au" target="_blank">sogle@med.usyd.edu.au</a>. For Donations, please <a href="http://www.kollingfoundation.org.au/event/penneyageing" target="_blank">click here</a>. Related links: <a href="/health/caring/2016/05/10-beautiful-quotes-about-grieving/">10 beautiful quotes about grieving</a> <a href="/health/caring/2016/05/you-shouldnt-feel-guilty-prioritising-yourself/">Why you shouldn’t feel guilty for prioritising yourself</a> <a href="/health/caring/2016/04/why-women-need-other-women/">Why women need other women</a>

Caring

A poem for Anzac Day

Dennis Ringrose, 87, ex Sherwood Foresters and Royal Warwickshire Regiments, shares his thoughts on Anzac Day in this deeply moving poem. I was born in 1929 in Nottingham in the UK, the youngest child in a family of six. I started work at 14 at John Player and Sons, where I stayed for four years, before leaving to start my National Service. After 20 weeks of infantry training I was sent to my country regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, before I was sent overseas to Jerusalem Palestine and transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. I stayed there until it became Israel so in a way I saw history being made. I then travelled to Salonika, Greece to become a batman (an officer's personal servant) to Roman Catholic Padre, who had been wounded at the great battle at Arnhem; he was a great fellow to look after. After two years I was released from National Service and started work at the Raleigh Industries where I met my wife Doreen. We’ve now been married 64 years and have three children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. My dabbling in poetry did not start until about 2000. I have always been interested in the military side of things and as an Australian citizen for many years, I decided to try my hand at capturing the most important national occasions in Australian history. I’ve always had an affinity with Australia, one that was struck up when as a teenager I watched the film Forty Thousand Horsemen. The moment when the horsemen come over the sand hills singing Waltzing Matilda always stuck in my mind. I hope you enjoy my poem. *** As Anzac Day draws near Trumpets call for all to hear Of an event that happened in the past About a campaign that could never last When two nations of the Commonwealth Approached a shore with silent stealth Then with enthusiasm and great gallantry Landed on the beach at Gallipoli Through countless attacks with great loss Many would never again see the Southern Cross As the sick and wounded figures grew God bless the nurses staunch and true After retiring shattered and forlorn A new national spirit was born And each year at this day’s dawn Groups of people stand on sacred lawn G’Day Bill, how are you Frank, Remember the days in that bloody tank Before the monuments memories revived Of their mates who never survived Altogether later in the day With banners flying bands begin to play Proudly marching in lines abreast Shiny medals clinking on their chest Sailors who had sailed on the morning tide Soldiers who had fought in countries world wide Aircrews flying high in the sky These are the people who made Australia proud As years go by and memories dim Older groups begin to thin Through the years since our federation There arrives a new generation Korea, Malaysia and Vietnam too The fight for freedom begins anew And as we proudly sing Advance Australia Fair Let us keep all these veterans in high revere Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/12/life-lessons-from-grandparents/">Top 10 life lessons kids learn from grandparents</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/5-types-of-grandparents/">There are 5 different types of grandparents – which one are you?</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/parents-and-kids-who-look-identical/">10 pics of parents and kids who look identical</a>

Art

Remembering the legacy of Australians at War

Dennis Ringrose, 87, ex Sherwood Foresters and Royal Warwickshire Regiments, reflects on the legacy of the generations of Australians who’ve gone to war to fight for their country. I was born in 1929 in Nottingham in the UK, the youngest child in a family of six. I started work at 14 at John Player and Sons, where I stayed for four years, before leaving to start my National Service. After 20 weeks of infantry training I was sent to my country regiment, the Sherwood Foresters, before I was sent overseas to Jerusalem Palestine and transferred to the Royal Warwickshire Regiment. I stayed there until it became Israel so in a way I saw history being made. I then travelled to Salonika, Greece to become a batman (an officer's personal servant) to Roman Catholic Padre, who had been wounded at the great battle at Arnhem; he was a great fellow to look after. After two years I was released from National Service and started work at the Raleigh Industries where I met my wife Doreen. We’ve now been married 64 years and have three children, four grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. My dabbling in poetry did not start until about 2000. I have always been interested in the military side of things and as an Australian citizen for many years, I decided to try my hand at capturing the most important national occasions in Australian history. I’ve always had an affinity with Australia, one that was struck up when as a teenager I watched the film Forty Thousand Horsemen. The moment when the horsemen come over the sand hills singing Waltzing Matilda always stuck in my mind. *** Australians at War Even before the year of our Federation The Commonwealth called on the men of this nation Off to South Africa when the Boer war began Who would forget the name Breaker Morant Then the world war to end all wars Unfortunately this aim was full of flaws Ypres, Cambrai, Passchendaele and the Somme Under the mud and poppies of Flanders Many would never again see the sun And in the desert came the Aussies, to fight the Turk and the Hun Many young men volunteered thinking it would be fun Gallipoli saw the Anzacs, a tradition was begun But many lost their mates before the withdrawal was finally done After four years of conflict and peace was finally restored The casualties were counted, it produced a dismal record The years rolled by and once again the war clouds began to appear Through that infamous man Hitler many countries were full of fear After Dunkirk came the Battle of Britain to save a nation In the airforce came the Aussies to help with Englands salvation Amongst their aces never to be forgot Was a hero called Bluey Trusscott And all those men in navy blue Night after night over Europe they flew Once again the desert called, things had run amok Who will ever forget the Australians defence of Tobruk As the Japanese approached Australia the desert troops were brought home But after retraining off to the jungle they were sent to roam With the Fuzzies help and without fail Performed their heroics on the Kakoda trail The navy too they played their part Many ships and crews lost from the start The massacre of valiant nurses made the blood tingle Lucky to survive was Sister Bullwinkle But finally after countless years The war was ended and there were tears Service people returned to their homes for release And the condition of the POW’S did not please As in the first war the cream of the nation had been plundered Will this be the last time people wondered Then again in 1950 came the call North and South Korea were at war Through the mistake of General McArthur Who went over the border and then strayed further This gave the Chinese an excuse to enter the fray Causing the United Nations to retreat day after day Until an Aussie battalion at the battle of Kapjong Defeated a Chinese division, another honour was won Then after months of heated deliberation Peace came to a devided nation To recognise against the enemy the Aussies constant battle The Americans gave them a special medal In the years to come without failure Came a conflict to fight communists in Malaysia Would world friction ever end To which Australia would her forces send Then on the horizon came another conflict For the first time the services included conscripts Many had never heared of the name Vietnam For many a new experience had begun They fought people in black pyjamas In the paddies they looked like local farmers So in later years there came defeat Back to their homeland forced to retreat And I’ll never know why they were treated like dirt Because the ‘’take over’’ by communism they had tried to avert And like their forefathers they had done their best Many of them had been laid to rest Once again Australians had given their all We hoped that never again they would have to answer the call But we know this is not true Because tyranny of nations has begun anew The Gulf war, East Timor, Afghanistan and Irak too Thank goodness this time casualties are few But in the future if the bugle calls again Rest assured the Australian nation will not refrain Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/2015/12/size-of-australia-to-other-countries/"></a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2015/12/life-lessons-from-grandparents/">Top 10 life lessons kids learn from grandparents</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/2015/12/size-of-australia-to-other-countries/"></a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/5-types-of-grandparents/">There are 5 different types of grandparents – which one are you?</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/2015/12/size-of-australia-to-other-countries/"></a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/lifestyle/family-pets/2016/01/parents-and-kids-who-look-identical/">10 pics of parents and kids who look identical</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/news/news/2015/12/size-of-australia-to-other-countries/"> </a>

Art

Top 13 love quotes from poetry

There are many ways to express the way you feel about loved one aside from those three little words. If you’re looking to say I love you with a twist, look no further than these 13 beautiful quotes about love from our favourite poems. Related links: <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/entertainment/books/2015/12/childrens-books-to-read/">10 children’s books to reread as an adult</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/entertainment/books/2015/11/short-classic-novels/">10 short classic books for the weekend</a> <a href="http://www.oversixty.co.nz/entertainment/books/2015/11/banned-childrens-books/">8 children’s books that caused controversy</a>

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Top 13 love quotes from poetry

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This letter from 1928 might be the most brutal rejection ever

Waltzing Australia: A bush poem

What happens to your brain when you read poetry

Thoughts we’ve all had while waiting in line for the loo

A 72-year-old’s moving poem on getting older

Poem highlights the beauty of ageing

A poem for Anzac Day

Remembering the legacy of Australians at War

Top 13 love quotes from poetry

Top 13 love quotes from poetry

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