Poetry in Australia: A Modern Dilemma

"Welcome to the Museum of Australian Literature" is written on the large sign outside the building. The swinging glass doors entice in the curious, the readers and the tourists.

The ground floor is a noisy and busy scene as children and adults immerse themselves in books for children. Up the wide shallow stairs are several floors devoted to books for adults; but it is hard to leave the new and remembered excitements of these childhood books. In one corner babies are digesting the bright cloth of their first books and building towers from stiff-paged ABC books. In another corner young teenage readers are plotting magic and far-off places over a large cauldron that gives an occasional shrill whistle and puffs out bright yellow steam. Instructions come from a teetering pile of fantasy stories. Near the stairs is a large group concentrating on an elderly man gesticulating as he reads from the latest adventure serial of a well-loved writer. Kneeling on several white sheets of paper, some children are writing their own short stories, guided by the many examples scattered all around them. A smaller group of older children is arguing intensely; they refer constantly to the pile of paperbacks at their feet. Books are piled up everywhere, teetering against the walls and stacked in many bookcases. Everywhere is the intense hum of reading, talking and laughing.

In the far corner in an ornate timber case with a polished brass catch there are a number of beautiful books. A sign says poetry books. Their covers glow, begging to be opened and read, but the key is nowhere to be seen. Once in a while the head of the Museum comes in and carefully takes out one of the books and gives a reading. Some of the children remember that the last time it happened, it became very quiet as everyone listened. The younger children wanted to move about as the words drifted down, but they were encouraged to be still and attentive. Up on the landing is another big bookcase of poetry books. Most people pass them by; when one is taken from the shelves, they are told to be careful, as they are precious and must be looked after. The books look lovely but they must be almost too valuable to be read. Perhaps they really belong up the stairs with all the books for the adults.

This is a fantasy about the future position of poetry in the pantheon of children's literature. But it is a future that may already be glimpsed. The place is shown as a museum, not a library, a home or a schoolroom. In this possible future books may be still enjoyed, but they have been relegated to somewhere separate where they are remembered and treasured. They are special rather than an ordinary part of everyday life. Furthermore, the most valuable and the most isolated books in this museum collection are books of poetry. In this paper I argue that the potential position of poetry for children at the beginning of this new millennium is not far removed from that suggested above. Nevertheless poetry can be an intrinsic part of the young lives of children in Australia today; this is exemplified by the work of Steven Herrick, the focus of this paper. It is possible to see in Herrick's work the ambiguities and conundrums implicit in the many ways that poetry may, and should, connect with the lives of children.

Herrick's poetry may be grouped or read in three ways. First, it may be read chronologically as it was published. This means that one begins with the earliest work, Water Bombs (1992), and concludes with the most recent, love poems and leg spinners (2001), with six other collections falling between these two. As with the work of any poet, this reading exposes common subjects and ideas and reveals the development of certain poetic concerns. It is also evidence of...