image of person or book cover 6774945177607037733.jpg
Issue Details: First known date: 1975... 1975 Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

Latest Issues

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'Sheila Rowbotham has written that the political expression of personal experience lies within the domain of novels and poetry. Seldom has this principle been made more apparent than in the anthology Mother, I’m Rooted. It becomes more and more clear with each one of the [152] poets and 542 pages of the book that this is the unambiguous expression of a social consciousness which cannot be glossed over or dismissed as belonging to a “radical” fringe. For these poets speak from all corners of the female social situation in Australia, and cover the whole spectrum of political consciousness … the anthology includes the whole gamut of women’s experience, married, single, lesbian, heterosexual, mothers, workers housewives. Poets, they speak out in tones of despair, anger, melancholy, loneliness, solidarity, sardonic bitterness, humour, hope and hopelessness. This very diversity and wholesale inclusiveness gives Mother, I’m Rooted, a strength and a unity. A strength from the rawness of the poetry, uncompromised and undiluted by the male publishing regime; and a unity from the common experience of being woman' (87).

Source: Howarth, Peter. 'Out of Nightmares into the Sun' Hecate 1.2 (1975): 87. (Note: Howarth's review gives the number of poets in the collection as 155; the correct number is 152.)

Exhibitions

Reading Australia

Reading Australia

This work has Reading Australia teaching resources.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Fitzroy, Fitzroy - Collingwood area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,:Outback Press , 1975 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
Untitledi"Mother, I'm rooted", Colleen Allen , single work poetry (p. 18)
Traumai"The shores of pain have sudden, swift uneasy shallows;", Mercia Allen , single work poetry (p. 19)
Untitledi"please don't ask", Margaret Allison , single work poetry (p. 20)
Regreti"Clever indulgence curbing the energetic heart", Apostrophe , single work poetry (p. 21)
Lookingglass Womani"She knows this female world is a prison", Barbara Atkinson , single work poetry (p. 22-23)
An Occupied Mindi"There's an eye looking out from inside my head -", Barbara Atkinson , single work poetry (p. 24)
Caughti"Just when I'm not looking", Barbara Atkinson , single work poetry (p. 25)
Miss Everington Straight Lacei"Miss Everington Straight Lace", Helen Bansemer , single work poetry (p. 27)
Logical Male Illogici"If women are so good at gathering", Helen Bansemer , single work poetry (p. 28)
Untitledi"Duty bound", Helen Bansemer , single work poetry (p. 29)
Me Todayi"It was silent today", Helen Bansemer , single work poetry (p. 30)
Like the Cumquatsi"Like the cumquats on the tree", Pamela Barnett , single work poetry (p. 31)
There Was This Mani"There was this man", Anne Bell , single work poetry (p. 32)
I Think I'm About To Diei"I watch my children walking towards the plane.", Lyn Bellamy , single work poetry (p. 33)
Chapultepeci"Poor mad Carlotta", Madame Hussen Benn , single work poetry (p. 34)
Argument on the Accuracy of the Footprinti"because i-am/am-not a tranquil one", Stefanie Bennett , single work poetry (p. 35)
Untitledi"an when yr in trouble watch", Stefanie Bennett , single work poetry (p. 36)
Summons '74i"when ya feel each dream's doctored", Stefanie Bennett , single work poetry (p. 37)
Note:
  • Dedication: (fer Nike)
  • With first line: when ya feel each dream doctored
Alonei"one the other (whoever)", Tag Bjorn , single work poetry (p. 38)
Senryui"so long ago", Janice M. Bostok , single work poetry (p. 39)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Fitzroy, Fitzroy - Collingwood area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria,: Outback Press , 1975 .
      image of person or book cover 6774945177607037733.jpg
      Extent: 542p.
      Description: illus.
      Reprinted: 1977 Second printing
      Note/s:
      • Book is prefaced by a poem by Sylvia Kantarizis : 'By their poems ye shall know them : poem'
      • Introduction by Kate Jennings.
      • Not every page displays its page number.
      ISBN: 0868880094

Works about this Work

1975 and 'Mother I'm Rooted' : The Legacy of Kate Jennings as Anthologist Aidan Coleman , 2022 single work essay
— Appears in: Social Alternatives , April vol. 41 no. 1 2022; (p. 82-83)

'Kate Jennings (1948-2021) turned her hand to virtually every form of writing, from speeches and journalism to poems, novels, short stories and non-fiction. For many, her value is located beyond the literary world, and she is credited with inaugurating second-wave feminism in Australia with her 1970 speech at the Vietnam moratorium rally on the lawns of Sydney University (Moore 2021: np). As a writer, she took a while longer to make a mark. Her first poetry collection, 'Come to Me My Melancholy Baby', is far from her best work, and it was followed by fifteen years of virtual silence, during which time she developed what Erik Jensen (2017) characterises as her ruthless precision. Her only other poetry collection 'Cats, Dogs and Pitchforks' (1993), gave Jennings a national reputation as a poet; 'Snake' (1996) - a marvel of economy - might be the best work of contemporary Australian fiction not to be shortlisted for a national award but her second novel 'Moral Hazard' (2002), won a number of honours, including the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. In this brief essay, however, I would like to focus, not on these many achievements, but on Jennings's importance as an anthologist.' (Publication abstract)

Generations of Women Poets : Sisters Publishing is Established Susan Sheridan , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Telling Stories : Australian Life and Literature 1935–2012 2013; (p. 363-370)
‘Women’s Writing’ and ‘Feminism’ : A History of Intimacy and Estrangement Zora Simic , 2013 single work criticism
— Appears in: Outskirts : Feminisms Along the Edge , May no. 28 2013;
'Women’s Liberation in Australia and elsewhere created feminist readers and writers. Consciousness-raising and reading and writing were intimately linked. Within the women’s movement, journals, magazines and newspapers were launched, small presses inaugurated and writing and reading groups formed. Subscription lists charted the explosion in new titles by, for and about women, and feminist bookshops stocked them. Women’s writers’ festivals, poetry readings and book launches were opportunities to find and promote new work, and to meet other feminists. Some women writers from the past were rediscovered and many contemporary female writers were championed. One of the most successful writers to emerge on the Australian literary scene in the 1970s – Helen Garner, whose debut novel Monkey Grip (1977) won the National Book Council’s Book of the Year award in 1978 – directly linked her ascendency to feminism. A specifically feminist literary criticism began to develop. More generally, feminism also helped to expand the market for women’s writing, so much so that by the 1980s major publishers were developing lists of women’s fiction and/ or subsuming feminist presses into their operations.' (Author's introduction)
Pam Brown’s Sydney Poetry in the 70s : In Conversation with Corey Wakeling Corey Wakeling (interviewer), 2012 single work interview
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 May vol. 38 no. 0 2012;
'Pam Brown is not only one of Australia's most prolific and important poets writing today, but also one of our richest archives on the history of late twentieth century Australian poetry. Since this is Cordite's Sydney issue, I thought an interview with her might evince a valuably multifarious image of, perhaps, Australia's most speedily shifting poetic landscape. In particular, as a contemporary Australian poetic history of the late twentieth century stems in part from poets closely associated with the city, it only made sense to ask Pam Brown, Sydney avant-garde collaborator, instigator, publisher and poet. Author of 16 books and 10 chapbooks, Brown has lived most of her life in Sydney, and now lives with her partner in the suburb of Alexandria. As well as offer new understandings of a period thoroughly historicised, I hoped Brown's personal recollections of the formative 1970s would illuminate the significance of those small press and handmade initiatives of the past that Astrid Lorange sees as 'non-causal' and 'monadic' in her Jacket2 archival commentary. Naturally, I was not disappointed.' (Author's introduction)
The Rise of 'Women's Poetry' in the 1970s Ann Vickery , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , July vol. 22 no. 53 2007; (p. 265-285)
[Review] Mother, I'm Rooted Kay Schaffer , 1975 single work review
— Appears in: Refractory Girl , Winter no. 9 1975; (p. 48)

— Review of Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets 1975 anthology poetry
Woman Poets Carl Harrison-Ford , 1975 single work review
— Appears in: Westerly , September no. 3 1975; (p. 75-79)

— Review of Come to Me My Melancholy Baby Kate Jennings , 1975 selected work single work poetry prose ; Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets 1975 anthology poetry
Out of Nightmares into the Sun Peter Howarth , 1975 single work review
— Appears in: Hecate , vol. 1 no. 2 1975; (p. 87-88)

— Review of Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets 1975 anthology poetry
Goodbye Prince Hamlet: The New Australian Women's Poetry Finola Moorhead , 1975 single work review
— Appears in: Meanjin Quarterly , Winter vol. 34 no. 2 1975; (p. 169-179) Quilt : A Collection of Prose 1985; (p. 66-73)

— Review of Tactics Jennifer Maiden , 1974 selected work poetry ; Condition Red Vicki Viidikas , 1973 selected work poetry ; Come to Me My Melancholy Baby Kate Jennings , 1975 selected work single work poetry prose ; Mother I'm Rooted : An Anthology of Australian Women Poets 1975 anthology poetry ; Living Alone Without a Dictionary Carol Novack , 1974 selected work poetry ; Madam Blackboots Stefanie Bennett , 1974 selected work poetry
The Rise of 'Women's Poetry' in the 1970s Ann Vickery , 2007 single work criticism
— Appears in: Australian Feminist Studies , July vol. 22 no. 53 2007; (p. 265-285)
Pam Brown’s Sydney Poetry in the 70s : In Conversation with Corey Wakeling Corey Wakeling (interviewer), 2012 single work interview
— Appears in: Cordite Poetry Review , 1 May vol. 38 no. 0 2012;
'Pam Brown is not only one of Australia's most prolific and important poets writing today, but also one of our richest archives on the history of late twentieth century Australian poetry. Since this is Cordite's Sydney issue, I thought an interview with her might evince a valuably multifarious image of, perhaps, Australia's most speedily shifting poetic landscape. In particular, as a contemporary Australian poetic history of the late twentieth century stems in part from poets closely associated with the city, it only made sense to ask Pam Brown, Sydney avant-garde collaborator, instigator, publisher and poet. Author of 16 books and 10 chapbooks, Brown has lived most of her life in Sydney, and now lives with her partner in the suburb of Alexandria. As well as offer new understandings of a period thoroughly historicised, I hoped Brown's personal recollections of the formative 1970s would illuminate the significance of those small press and handmade initiatives of the past that Astrid Lorange sees as 'non-causal' and 'monadic' in her Jacket2 archival commentary. Naturally, I was not disappointed.' (Author's introduction)
Towards a New Diversity : Martin Johnston and the New Australian Poetry Mark Roberts , 1994 single work criticism
— Appears in: Island , Autumn no. 58 1994; (p. 60-63)
Wrangles, Yawps and Awful Moans Kate Jennings , 1987 single work prose
— Appears in: Vogue Australia , November. vol. 31 no. 11 1987; (p. 74, 76) Save Me, Joe Louis 1988; (p. 79-85)
The Emergence of Women Writers Since 1975 Drusilla Modjeska , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Macmillan Anthology of Australian Literature 1990; (p. 360-365)
Last amended 8 Dec 2017 09:52:43
X