Cirrus@Austlit

This is the first collection of poems by Oodgeroo Noonuccal (originally published as Kath Walker).

This 'anthology of Australian poetry of the 1960s, was edited, with an introduction, by Rodney Hall and Thomas W. Shapcott. The keynote of these ‘new impulses’ was ‘a suspicion of idealism, and an inbred awareness of the consequences of totalitarian beliefs’. Authoritarianism in religion and politics was eschewed, as was the concept of national and international aggression. Major established poets such as Kenneth Slessor, Judith Wright and A. D. Hope are not represented because the editors felt that their poetry of the decade added little to their already defined stances. Their contemporaries, however, Gwen Harwood and Francis Webb, are given considerable space because they are important influences on younger poets.' (Source : The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, online edition)

'Oodgeroo's writing is often a provocative and passionate plea for justice. My People is a collection of poetry and prose and a reminder of Oodgeroo's contribution to indigenous culture and the journey to reconciliation.' (Source: Reading Australia website)

'A collection of the best poetry of the twentieth century; Hope - Wright - Slessor - Webb - Harwood - Murray.' (Publication summary)

'Poems, stories, letters and extracts from novels, plays and journals present a great variety of responses to Australia and to the art of writing. Items have been arranged into 12 groupings that reflect different ways of seeing the material of Australian writing. Each section has its own introduction. Problems are explained, theories and contexts for a wider understanding are offered. The book includes biographical guides to all authors and a full chronological table of events in the literary history of Australia.'   (Publication summary)

'In this collection of contemporary poems for children, thirty-five Aboriginal poets write about what it means to be Aboriginal today. Many of the poems reflect the anger, despair and determination of a people dispossessed of their land and denied justice. Some poets recall the spirituality and culture of their ancestors. Still others look with hope to the future...' (Source: Back cover)

Includes poems, memories, anecdotes, personal notes and recollections by Oodgeroo, as well as photographs and an appreciation by Judith Wright.

Presents artwork, prose and poetry of thirty-six contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander writers from the off-shore island, the Northern Territory, and all six states of Australia.

'The Australian Poetry Library (APL) aims to promote a greater appreciation and understanding of Australian poetry by providing access to a wide range of poetic texts as well as to critical and contextual material relating to them, including interviews, photographs and audio/visual recordings.

This website currently contains over 42,000 poems, representing the work of more than 170 Australian poets. All the poems are fully searchable, and may be accessed and read freely on the World Wide Web. Readers wishing to download and print poems may do so for a small fee, part of which is returned to the poets via CAL, the Copyright Agency Limited. Teachers, students and readers of Australian poetry can also create personalised anthologies, which can be purchased and downloaded. Print on demand versions will be availabe from Sydney University Press in the near future.

It is hoped that the APL will encourage teachers to use more Australian material in their English classes, as well as making Australian poetry much more available to readers in remote and regional areas and overseas. It will also help Australian poets, not only by developing new audiences for their work but by allowing them to receive payment for material still in copyright, thus solving the major problem associated with making this material accessible on the Internet.

The Australian Poetry Library is a joint initiative of the University of Sydney and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). Begun in 2004 with a prototype site developed by leading Australian poet John Tranter, the project has been funded by a major Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC), CAL and the University of Sydney Library. A team of researchers from the University of Sydney, led by Professor Elizabeth Webby and John Tranter, in association with CAL, have developed the Australian Poetry Library as a permanent and wide-ranging Internet archive of Australian poetry resources.' Source: www.poetrylibrary.edu.au (Sighted 30/05/2011).

'Oodgeroo's writing is often a provocative and passionate plea for justice. My People is a collection of poetry and prose and a reminder of Oodgeroo's contribution to indigenous culture and the journey to reconciliation.' (Source: Reading Australia website)

'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

Poems and prose by Australian authors from Slovenian background are presented in English or Slovenian. Some works in Slovenian appear with a parallel translation into English. There are also various announcements and description of events pertaining to the cultural and intellectual life of Australian Slovenes.
To emphasize multiculturalism and the reconciliation aspect of the bicentenial celebrations the anthology also includes the Slovenian translation of works by Australian-born poets such as Geoffrey Dutton, David Brooks and Kath Walker, and a poem by Ngitji Ngitji in the Pitjantjatjara language.