Of Cats, Frogs, Madmen and Shearers

One of the finer cultural moments of 2012 was a poetry event at my book club.

We had been asked each to bring a piece of poetry to be read and discussed in some length.

One of Australia’s outstanding poets is Dorothy Porter, who, unfortunately died in December four years ago. A prolific poet, she wrote more than 1000 poems and many will be aware of her most well known work – The Monkey’s Mask. However I chose the verse novel What a Piece of Work, which captures institutional life seen through the eyes of the new superintendent at Callan Park Psychiatric Hospital. Amongst her many titles, this booklet caught my eye because it is the reputed exclamation that Opposition Leader Tony Abbott’s made under-his-breath at Prime Minister Gillard’s renowned misogyny attack.

However, what was more striking at the Christmas poetry event was the diversity of ideas which our group displayed – from familiar nursery rhymes to poems about cats and frogs and daffodils and men daydreaming in shearing sheds.

From classic gems such as Wordsworth’s Daffodils, which our generation learnt by heart at school, (I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host of golden daffodils) we moved onto the challenge of ageing with Lewis Carol’s You are old Father William.

Gwen Harwood’s, The Secret Life of Frogs, carried a shock amongst its innocent beginning with words: “We knew about Poor George, who cried if any woman touched her hair. He’d been inside a brothel when the Jerries came and started shooting. (We thought a brothel was a French hotel that served hot broth to diggers.)

The girl that he’d been with was scalped. Every Frog in the house was killed.

Henry Lawson’s classic poem,The Shearer’s Dream had us all laughing at the imagery:

“Oh, I dreamt I shore in a shearin’-shed, and it was a dream of joy,

For every one of the rouseabouts was a girl dressed up as a boy—But after dreaming of three girls to each lad, our poet crushed his hopes with When I woke with me head in the blazin’ sun to find ‘twas a shearer’s dream.”

Then one of our number took us on a Medieval history lesson with the English Nursery Rhyme“Oranges and Lemons” of the famous British bells, how their ringing tones were used to communicate when ships laden with citrus fruit sailed along the Thames to London.

On a more sombre note, we listened in awe to W.H. Auden’s emotive poem Stop the Clocks.

Then, in case any of us weren’t gobsmacked by the amazing array of topic and talent, we heard John Clarke’s take on TS Elliot’s Macavity, The Mystery Cat who wrote a clever parody entitled Liquidity, The Accounting Cat.

Naturally, we all agreed that a poetry event would celebrate Christmas each year from now on.

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