Today is a good day for reflecting. I was going to write a wildly sympathetic post to everyone in the US because you’re in such a difficult position. Bushfires and a new president and… so many things. But then I read the Australian news and we have turned into bigot-central and I belong to one of the groups that the bigots enjoy attacking.
I sometimes get angry. I sometimes rant. I often analyse what’s going on. But today… today I think we all deserve a break.
I’m going to find you a couples of poems to give us all that moment of peace in a difficult world.
The first is one of my favourites. I am Australian. No number of people telling me that Jews cannot be Australian can convince me otherwise. Modern Australian, but Australian. This is our iconic poem expressing this, read by the author: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86TKK81EwJ4 Dorothea MacKellar lived from 1885 to 1968 . Her accent is very close to that of my father’s first cousin, who was born in the late nineteenth century and died in the twenty-first. This is one of the reasons it’s one of my heart-poems. I loved Linda very much, and still miss her, twenty years on.
If you read the last paragraph without due thought, you might think that I myself am nearing one hundred years of age. I am not. However, Australia has a particular sense of humour and… I am Australian. I am sorely tempted to give you a link to our latest lamb ad to justify everything I’ve written in this paragraph. This is not the moment of quiet contemplation I had intended, nor a statement of national identity… but it is the annual lamb ad, which is of significant cultural importance. Each and every year I say this to someone. Here is the new advertisement, so that you can decide for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75BAUXZyWw0
Clearly I am not going in the direction of quiet contemplation. It appears that what I really meant, was that we should take a break from bleakness in whatever way we need. I would love anyone reading this to share your favourite poems and your favourite advertisements (the funny ones). If you don’t, I might have to find lamb ads from other years. I need more poetry and I need more silly ads. I’d rather learn the ones you love than revisit ones I already know.
PS The lamb ads are an annual thing. And they’re always, always funny and just a little thoughtful.
PPS Normally I share Paul Verlaine poems, because I love his work so very much. The thing is that Jewish Australians are being told that we don’t belong here, so another type of beloved poem was appropriate. I am facing hate with poetry this week.
Ah—the annual lamb ad. Thank you for this. I thought last year’s was funny, but this one made me guffaw out loud (not necessarily a frequent occurrence with me these days . . . ).
Rebecca Shaw’s latest article in The Guardian (“I knew one day I’d have to watch powerful men burn the world down – I just didn’t expect them to be such losers”) helped lighten the mood, but this ad was icing on the much-needed cake of solace.
Sigh. If only we could truly laugh our way out of the world’s problems . . .
I’ve been trying to think of a soothing poem for the times, but Philip Larkin’s “This Be The Verse” keeps popping up in my mind instead. I think I’ll have to re-immerse myself in Dionne Brand’s collection “The Blue Clerk” in order to recapture the possibility of beauty enshrouded in disquieting words.