Presented for The Royal United Services Institute of Victoria by Mike O’Brien
The final event for Wednesday was again held at Tonic House, and featured Major General (Ret’d) Mike O’Brien speaking to an audience of 70 on behalf of The Royal United Services Institute of Victoria on Female Australian Poets of the First World War. He called them “The Other Poets”, as they were not the familiar English, male soldier poets whom we associate with the First World War. Mike started with the traditional poets by sharing with us poems by Robert Graves and Siegfried Sassoon, before moving on to his theme of diversity by showing us poems produced by the soldiers of the Central Powers.
He then moved on to his main focus on poems written by women, including English VAD nurses such as Vera Brittain and an impressive range of female Australian poets, generally writing in Australia about the impact of events involving their sons, brothers, husbands and lovers thousands of miles away. Mike’s talk was illustrated by readings which were a combination of Mike reading some verses live and playing some audio and video recordings of poems, including one by Robert Graves read by his son, and a very striking reading by the former British Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy.
Mike shared with us some works by poets such as Dorothy McRae, Mary Gilmore, Dorothea MacKellar and Nettie Palmer, as well as having some rare books of their work on display.
The audience listened in an almost reverent silence to this most moving presentation.