In the Park – Gwen Harwood
Victoria Park, Sydney
She sits in the park. Her clothes are out of date.
Two children whine and bicker, tug her skirt.
A third draws aimless patterns in the dirt
Someone she loved once passed by – too late
to feign indifference to that casual nod.
“How nice” et cetera. “Time holds great surprises.”
From his neat head unquestionably rises
a small balloon…”but for the grace of God…”
They stand a while in flickering light, rehearsing
the children’s names and birthdays. “It’s so sweet
to hear their chatter, watch them grow and thrive, ”
she says to his departing smile. Then, nursing
the youngest child, sits staring at her feet.
To the wind she says, “They have eaten me alive.”
by Gwen Harwood (1920-1995)
In the Dark 
February 10, 2024 at 9:59 am
Good stuff. Try Banjo Paterson (not Sir Les!) and Henry Lawson too. The latter’s “To my cultured critics” would not have been well received at Sydney (or any other) Uni.
May I recommend the UNSW State Art Gallery? In the early material you can see essentially English painters struggle to come to terms with the different Australian light, and then succeed.
Australia is effectively where I grew up, a little late in my 20s but better than never. It was the start of my interest in history, a subject which had bored me at school. I saw the Aborigines, to whom there is simply no analogy in Britain, and I wondered how come I was living in a culture much the same as mine but on the opposite side of the world and totally different from theirs. I still treasure John Roberts’ History of the World, the book I bought and devoured, which was the first history book I read with enjoyment.
I was told that the Aborigines’ worldview was based on the ‘Dreamtime’ but every summary I read of what this was differed from every other summary. I never got to know any Aborigines. Eventually I read the essays of a sympathetic and obviously sensible anthropologist called Bill Stanner about the Aborigines and their plight, and one essay called just “The Dreaming” made sense of it for me. You can find it online if you look hard (or I can email you a pdf of a book of Stanner’s essays – not the book that is in print, although there is some overlap including that essay).
February 10, 2024 at 11:07 am
The Art Gallery is already on my list!
February 10, 2024 at 2:14 pm
You might also enjoy reading about the ‘Sydney Push’ (and the slightly associated scurrilous poem, “The bastard from the bush”). Do remember that David Stove was of Sydney Uni.