Community & Business
16 August, 2023
Bush poet inspiring the next generation
Award-winning bush poet Gary Fogarty, of Millmerran, has a new project ready to release and it is unlike anything he has done before.
‘I Wish I Was a Farmer’ has been produced in collaboration with Brisbane illustrator Darcie Harris, who grew up at Pampas where her parents are still based.
The book combines Gary’s love of bush poetry with a desire to show city kids where their food comes from and to introduce the younger generation to the joy of poetry.
It’s a joy he has known since his own childhood when his father would read Banjo Patterson and Will Ogilvie to him.
He first picked up a pen aged 20 after an accident landed him in bed with an injured back.
The poems began flowing and some time later he went to the Gympie Muster where unbekown to him some mates had entered him in the bush poetry competition.
It was his first time performing to an audience and he didn’t secure a place but returned the following year to win it.
Since those early days he has performed in every major city in Australia and twice in the US, released three books of his own poetry and three albums.
He has won Bush Laureate Awards at the Tamworth Country Music Festival and was the winner of the inaugural Australian Bush Poetry Competition in Winton in 1985.
Gary has performed in schools all across the land and run workshops teaching adults and children how to write poetry and perform it, so a children’s book was a natural step.
“I had started writing poetry for children and then I heard that some study had come out saying that most Year 9 students in the city had no idea where their milk and eggs came from ... my family has been on the land forever and I wanted to do something about that.
“And when I saw some of Darcie’s artwork I thought I could do a kids’ book and ask her to illustrate it and it could help give her something back for her artwork.”
Gary wrote the poems around a series of farm animals and Darcie provided a range of colourful and delightful images for each one.
He hopes parents and grandparents will enjoy reading the book to their children and grandchildren and introduce them to country life and rhyming poetry.
“If you ask most adults their first connection with poetry - and I do this in my workshops - it’s always nursery rhymes which are a rhyming meter just like bush poetry.
“Most adults can rattle off a line or two even if they’ve forgotten the whole story but most of those nursery rhymes that we grew up with are European based and so I’ve got a hope that some people might look at these not so much as bush poetry but as Australian nursery rhymes.”
Who knows, perhaps one of those young readers will grow up to be another Will Ogilvie... or Gary Fogarty.
Gary counts Ogilvie as his poetry hero.
“He was in the same era as Patterson and Lawson and so highly regarded they used to call them the big three.
“He was a Scotsman who spent 11 years in Australia and out of those three he was the only one who lived a stockman’s life... Henry was a full time writer and Banjo was a solicitor.”
The book will be released at a public launch at the Mill Inn Tavern, Millmerran on Saturday, August 26 at 2pm.
Entry is free and children are welcome.
The book will be available at the launch and from Gary’s website for $15.
While the new work is under wraps until the launch, Gary agreed to let us publish one of his previous works.
A FATHER’S HANDS
I’ve seen them swing a ‘Kelly’, felling ironbark in the scrub,
Seen them wrapped around a ‘schooner’ in a quiet outback pub.
Seen them smoothly guide the handpiece down the whipping side again,
Seen them unwrap the ‘Bex Powders’, to help block out the pain.
I’ve seen the callouses and blisters, from the shovel and the bar,
Seen their vice like grip make child‘s play of opening up a jar.
Seen them guide a stockhorse gently with a light touch on the rein,
Seen them ply the stockwhip fiercely wheeling weaners on the plain.
I’ve seen them carving loin chops from the carcass of a sheep,
Seen them lift a sleeping child, gently tuck him in to sleep.
Seen them loading bales of lucerne while the summer sun bit hard,
Seen them niftily work the drafting gates down at the cattle yards.
I have seen them hit like hammers in a boxing ring or two,
And I’ve seen them use a rifle, when his country asked him to.
I have seen those hands extended to a stranger out of luck,
Seen them offer his last dollar when he thought a mate was stuck.
I have seen them roll a ‘quirley’ from an old Log Cabin tin,
Seen them boil up the billy as a whole new day begins.
And I’ve felt them on my shoulder, when I’ve lost and when I’ve won,
Felt the comfort of these father’s hands, wrapped around his son.
Gary Fogarty, 2019
