There were five main arenas where Australian Great War Poetry was written in the period of 1914 to 1939: the Home Front, Gallipoli, The Middle East, The Western Front and England. These arenas were to form important segregations of poetic attitude and interest specific to the war mood at the time. Australian poets, just like their British counterparts, could be humorous, melancholy, angry or just longing for home. Many Australians, for example, wrote about the Australian flora, and how they missed it.
Many of these poets served in more than one campaign, while others only served in one, either joining up after Gallipoli, or being invalided back home or killed in action. A small listing of Australian Great War Poets can be seen below.
Soldiers
Leon Gellert,[1] Frank Westbrook,[2] Oliver Hogue, Tom Skeyhill,[3] Frederic Manning,[4] Edwin Gerard,[5] Geoffrey Wall,[6] Walter James Redfern Turner,[7] William McDonald,[8] Ion Idriess, Andrew Barton Paterson and many others.
Nurses
Christine Erica Strom,[9] Alice Ross-King and Emily 'Beryl' Henson.
Civilian men
Archibald T. Strong, Arthur Henry Adams, Bernard Patrick O’Dowd, C.J. Dennis,[10] Christopher Brennan,[11] Edward Dyson, Henry Lawson,[12] John Le Gay Brereton,[13] Leonard Nelson[14] and many more.
Civilian women
Agnes Rose-Soley,[15] Agnes Littlejohn,[16] Alice Gore-Jones,[17] Capel Boake, Dorothea McKellar, Dorothy McCrae,[18] Ella McFadyen,[19] Esther Nea-Smith, Grace Ethel Martyr,[20] Joan Torrance,[21] Madoline 'Nina' Murdoch,[22] Margery Ruth Betts,[23] Marion Knowles, Mary Gilmore,[24] May Kidson,[25] Philadelphia N. Robertson[26] and many others.
Foreign pro-Australia
Arthur St. John Adcock - Lance Corporal Cobber, C. Fox Smith, Edgar Wallace, Ethel Campbell, Henry Newbolt, Jessie Pope and Sylvia Hobday.
Prediction poets
Henry Lawson[27] and William Wentworth to name only two. There are several.
References
- ↑ Gellert, Leon (1917) Songs of a Campaign. Angus & Robertson: Sydney
- ↑ Westbrook, Frank E. (ND) Anzac and After. Duckworth and Co: London
- ↑ Skeyhill, Tom (ND) Soldier Songs from Anzac. George Robertson & Company: Melbourne
- ↑ Manning, Frederic (1917) Eidola. E.P. Dutton and Company: New York
- ↑ Trooper Gerardy (1919) Australian Light Horse Ballads and Rhymes. H.H. Champion Australian Authors’ Agency: Melbourne
- ↑ Wall, Geoffrey (1917) Songs of an Airman. Australian Authors’ Agency: Melbourne
- ↑ Turner, W.J. (1918) The Dark Fire. Sidgwick & Jackson: London
- ↑ McDonald, W.M. (ND) Soldiers Songs from Palestine. Edward A. Vidler: Melbourne
- ↑ Bonwick, C.E. (1917) Diary of Australian Army Nurse Christine Erica Strom. (NP): (NC)
- ↑ Dennis, C.J. (1916) The Moods of Ginger Mick. Angus & Robertson: Sydney & Dennis, C.J. (1915) The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke. Angus & Robertson: Sydney
- ↑ Brennan, Christopher (1918) A Chant of Doom and Other Verses. Angus and Robertson: Sydney
- ↑ Lawson, Henry (1916) Song of the Dardanelles and Other Verses. George G. Harrap & Company: London
- ↑ Le Gay Brereton, John (2012) 73 Poems. PoemHunter.com – The World’s Poetry Archive: (NC)
- ↑ Nelson, Leonard (1918) Dinky-Di Soldier and Other Jingles. Tyrrell’s Limited: Sydney
- ↑ Rose-Soley, Agnes (1923) Stray Chords. Tyrrell’s Limited: Sydney
- ↑ Littlejohn, Agnus (July 1915) Patriotic Poems. (NP): (NC) & Littlejohn, Agnus (Jan 1915) Lyrical Poems. Harry Gorton: Sydney & Littlejohn, Agnus (1916) War Poems. Vale & Pearson: Sydney
- ↑ Gore-Jones, A. (1917) Troop Trains and Other Verses. G. Hassell & Son: Adelaide
- ↑ McCrae, Dorothy Frances (ND) The Clear Call. George Robertson & Company: Melbourne & McCrae, Dorothy Frances (ND) Soldier my Soldier! George Robertson & Company: Melbourne
- ↑ "State Library Victoria: Songs of the Last Crusade". State Library Victoria. Archived from the original on 2019-02-07. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
- ↑ "Sonnet of Welcome". The Herald. No. 13, 791. Victoria, Australia. 25 May 1920. p. 1. Retrieved 12 February 2022 – via National Library of Australia.
- ↑ Torrance, Joan (ND) Sons of the Southern Sea. Francis, Day & Hunter: London
- ↑ Murdoch, Nina (1915) Songs of the Open Air. William Brooks & Co.: Sydney & Murdoch, Nina (1922) More Songs of the Open Air. Robertson & Mullens: Melbourne
- ↑ Betts, Margery Ruth (1917) Remembering and Other Verse. Australian Authors’ Agency: Melbourne
- ↑ Ed. by Strauss, Jennifer (2004) The Collected Verse of Mary Gilmore, Vol. 1 1887 – 1929. University of Queensland Press: Brisbane
- ↑ Kidson, May (1918) Memory’s Voices. Returned Serviceman’s Association: Perth
- ↑ Robertson, Philadelphia N. (ND) An Anzac Budget and Other Verses. Australian Authors’ Agency: (NC)
- ↑ Lawson, Henry (1916) Song of the Dardanelles and Other Verses. George G. Harrap & Company: London
External links
AGWP Canon & Register Australian Great War poetry website