60 Classic Australian Poems for Children (15 page)

Barcroft Henry Boake

 

In his short life,
Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake
(who also wrote under the name Surcingle) was a surveyor's field assistant, boundary rider, drover, stockman, draftsman and poet. Many of his poems were first printed in
The Bulletin
and his first collection of poetry was not published until after his death. The unusual name Barcroft had been handed down through the family for generations. Boake loved the poetry of Adam Lindsay Gordon. He is buried at North Sydney cemetery.

CJ Dennis

 

Clarence Michael James Dennis
had a variety of jobs—including at a stock and station agency, as a bar tender, clerk, secretary to a senator, and journalist or editor for a number of newspapers, one of which he started—but it is his humorous stories and verse in major city newspapers for which he is most fondly remembered. Much of his writing appeared in
The Bulletin
and
The Herald
. After his early years growing up in South Australia, Dennis lived and worked in cities, including Melbourne, Sydney and Broken Hill. National memorials for Australia's ‘laureate of the larrikin' are located in South Australia and in
Victoria. He is buried at Box Hill Cemetery. He also wrote under pseudonyms including ‘The Den' and ‘CJD'.

Edward Dyson

 

George Edward Dyson
was a freelance writer. He was another writer who loved names, his pseudonyms including ‘Billy T', ‘Billy Tea', ‘Silas Snell' and ‘E.D.' His literary work included plays, stories, humorous verse, and jokes. He wrote in notebooks and on anything else that might be able to store his ideas. He also worked as a miner and in factories, but it was his experience growing up surrounded by the miners and the people he encountered while moving around early in life that became the source for much of his writing. He wrote for
The Bulletin
and many other papers.

Louis Esson

 

Three-year-old
Thomas Louis Buvelot Esson
arrived in Australia with his mother and siblings after his father's death. He grew up in Melbourne. As an adult he worked as a library assistant and journalist, and also wrote plays and poems. He was passionate about the theatre. His work was often about being Australian and ‘Australianness' and was published in
The Bulletin
and other newspapers. He travelled back to the land of his
birth but returned to Australia a few years later, immersed himself in theatre and began publishing plays.

George Essex Evans

 

In 1881 at the age of eighteen,
George Essex Evans
migrated with his brother and two sisters to Queensland. He attempted farming at which he was unsuccessful. More success came as a teacher and then a journalist, editing and writing articles and stories. He also owned a newspaper and later worked as a public servant where he wrote books for the government tourist bureau. He was also a successful playwright. Essex's poetry, immensely patriotic and lovingly portraying the remote parts of Queensland, was written while he was employed in other occupations. It was sometimes written under the pseudonym of ‘Christophus'. His poem ‘Ode for Commonwealth Day' was entered into the inaugural Federation Day competition sponsored by the NSW government, and won the fifty-guinea first prize. Alfred Deakin, Australia's second Prime Minister, described Evans as Australia's national poet. Evans was buried at the Drayton and Toowoomba Cemetery and the Broken Column memorial was erected to his memory.

Mary Hannay Foott

 

Mary Hannay Foott
was just seven years old when her family arrived in Melbourne from Glasgow in 1853. She was a landowner, a schoolteacher, a governess, a journalist, an editor and writer of poems, plays and articles, and a licensed teacher of drawing. She studied art in Melbourne and used the income she gained from her writing to support her. After she married she lived in outback NSW in Bourke and later on the Paroo River in Queensland. Following her husband's death she moved with her young sons to Toowoomba and later Brisbane where she began writing for local newspapers. She eventually became an editor. Her poetry, often reflecting the landscape and her experiences of the places she had lived, appeared in newspapers and periodicals.

WT Goodge

 

At the age of eighteen,
William Thomas Goodge
took a job as a ship's steward and travelled to Sydney, where he decided to jump ship in 1882. He spent the next twelve years in outback NSW, where he was employed on some Cobb & Co. properties, but left and later became a newspaper journalist on regional newspapers. He eventually became an editor, freelance writer and part-owner of some newspapers. Much of his work was published in
The Bulletin
, as well as other newspapers. Only one collection,
Hits! Skits! and Jingles!
was published in his lifetime.

Adam Lindsay Gordon

 

Growing up in England,
Adam Lindsay Gordon
was a restless youth (which is one way of saying that he got into a fair bit of trouble with the law). He emigrated to Adelaide in 1854 and, ironically, joined the South Australian mounted police. When he resigned from the force he successfully took up horse-breaking and riding horses in steeple chases. Gordon also became a South Australian Member of Parliament, later resigning and becoming a sheep farmer in Western Australia. His poetry, some of which was very romantic, was published in magazines Australia-wide. One collection was published the day before he died.

Gordon is buried at Brighton Cemetery in Victoria. In 1932 his statue was unveiled at Parliament House in Victoria and in 1934 he became the first Australian to have a memorial bust placed in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey.

PJ Hartigan (John O'Brien)

 

Patrick Joseph Hartigan
was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1903 and was one of the first curates to have a motor car. He was an inspector of Catholic schools, a religious historian, a short story writer and (most famously) a poet. His early poetry (published in newspapers, the Catholic press and also
The Bulletin
) was written under the pen-name ‘Mary Ann' while he was
at the seminary. After his appointment as parish priest of Narrandera, he began writing as ‘John O'Brien'. He loved the verse of Lawson and Paterson because their poems were of ‘real' Australia and his own poetry also reflected his experience of Australia. He wrote about the struggle of life on the land, the humorous side of life, the bravery and endurance and the love of being Australian. When he died, a requiem Mass was said for him at Saint Mary's Cathedral. He is buried beside his parents in the North Rocks Cemetery.

Frank Hudson

 

Not much is known about
Frank Hudson
. His poetry has been published in
The Bulletin
and he probably lived in Australia in the early 1900s for a few years. He also spent some time in New Zealand and many years travelling the world.

Thomas Henry Kendall

 

Henry Kendall
's first job was as a cabin boy on a whaling ship, but that only lasted for two years—the work was too hard! He was also a shop assistant and a civil servant. After his writing began to be published in newspapers and periodicals in Sydney and Melbourne, he became a journalist and editor. A period of ill health saw him take work as a bookkeeper. He loved writing about the
Australian bush, the coast and arid inland—and about the harshness of life for the early explorers. Kendall liked names. He was married as Henry Clarence Kendall (his birth name was Thomas Henry Kendall) and he wrote under names including ‘A. Mopoke', ‘A Literary Hack', and ‘The Meddler'. He is buried in Waverley Cemetery (NSW) where a monument was erected to his memory in 1886.

Henry Lawson

 

Born on the Grenfell goldfields,
Henry Lawson
had many occupations throughout his life. He was a journalist, novelist, short story writer, poet, shearer, coach painter and clerk. After his marriage he lived with his family in New Zealand and England for a time, although most of his life was spent in Australia. Lawson attended school for only about three years and a childhood illness left him partially deaf by the age of fourteen, yet he has become one of Australia's greatest literary figures. Much of his writing—both verse and stories—is about the good and the bad of the land, ordinary people, mateship and life in the outback. In September 1892,
The Bulletin
gave Lawson a rail ticket and a small amount of money. The destination was Bourke in western NSW and it was this time experiencing outback life that provided the material for much of his most famous writing. He was the first writer to be given a state funeral.

John Neilson

 

John Neilson
was the father of the poet John Shaw Neilson. Like his son he had little schooling and worked throughout his life in many labour-intensive jobs. He was also a successful bush poet. His verse appeared in local newspapers and magazines. In 1893 he and his son John Shaw Neilson entered the Australian Natives Association poetry competition. They both won first prize in their respective sections.

It wasn't until after his death that a collection of his verse was published, in 1938.

John Shaw Neilson

 

John Shaw Neilson
had very little schooling (totalling possibly two years); he read little and had poor eyesight. He often worked with his brothers and father in occupations that required lots of manual labour, such as road work, fencing, timber-cutting and scrub-clearing. He worked as a farmer and also a public servant. Working outdoors helped Neilson to observe, listen and interact with the environment around him. Some of his poetry showed his love for nature. His happiest years were when he left the bush and settled in Melbourne. Neilson had started writing poetry when he left school and his poetry appeared in papers;
The Bulletin
began to publish his verse in 1895. He had five books of poetry published
during his life. Much of his verse was created in his head before being dictated, often to his family, because of his poor eyesight. Most of Neilson's writing (including letters, lists, outlines for poems and household notes) was recorded in twenty-eight notebooks. Some of his work has been set to music and recorded.