Australian Poetry Now

By Bronwyn Lea

Once asked what poets can do for Australia, A.D. Hope replied: "They can justify its existence." Such has been the charge of Australian poets, from Hope himself to Kenneth Slessor, Judith Wright to Les Murray, Anthony Lawrence to Judith Beveridge: to articulate the Australian experience so that it might live in the imagination of its people. While the presence and potency of the Australian landscape remains an abiding interest, a great deal of Australian poetry has been innovative and experimental, with poets such as Robert Adamson, Michael Dransfield, Vicki Viidikas, John Forbes, Gig Ryan, J.S. Harry, and Jennifer Maiden leading the way. The richness, strength, and vitality of Australian poetry is marked by a prodigious diversity that makes it as exhilarating to survey as it is challenging to encapsulate.

While the most convincing justification for the existence of Australia might come from its indigenous poets, Aboriginal poetry in Australia has been particularly overlooked, both its historical traditions and the innovative work being written today. Australian Aboriginal culture is thought to date back over forty thousand years, making it the oldest continuous culture on the planet. Of the 250 indigenous languages in circulation before European settlement in 1788, fewer than 150 survived the advance of English, and the numbers are dwindling. Fortunately, linguists have managed to transcribe and translate at least some of the rich and diverse Aboriginal oral traditions before they are lost.

Read the full essay on the Poetry Foundation website.