FARM VERSE
Sir-In one of the New , Zealand centennial surveys it was pointed out that "we .... have musterers and swaggers but no Henry Lawson; roaring camps but no Bret Harte, We have never had a Banjo Paterson." This expressed what I have felt to be a loss to our country since the days of my childhood when I learned to love the horses and horsemen of the Australian Bush Ballads. But although we have had neither a Lawson nor a Paterson, and, may I add, neither a Lindsay Gordon nor an. Ogilvie, we have had some poets who have written of our farms and stations and of the sheep and cattle, horses and dogs, men and women who live on them, During the past two years I have searched in libraries and newspaper files for material. that could be collected into an Anthology of New Zealand Farm and Station Verse, and several artists have kindly offered to provide illustrations, But although my quest has not been unsuccessful I do not think that the yield gives a true picture of life on our farms and stations. In fact, qa reader. might be forgiven for assuming that the North Island was populated almost entirely by Dairy Cows and the South by Rabbits, Swaggers, and Shearers-in that order. No one has sung of mustering or snow-raking; lambing, drafting, weaning, branding, dipping, droving. No one has described a wool or a stock sale, Several have written of ploughing, none of harvesting, nor has anyone described the grassing of bush burns or the war waged against the ever persistent manuka of parts of the North Island. Also, I have found no poem telling of the work of women on the farms, either in the house, or on the land during the war. There may be much good farming verse as yet unpublished or hidden away in newspaper files, and I would be grateful if you would permit me to appeal, through your correspondence columns, to any reader.of The Listener who has material, original or otherwise, which might be suitable for inclusion in this anthology and who by sending it to me would help to make this book really representative of New Zealand Farm and
Station Life.
A. E.
WOODHOUSE
(Blue Cliffs Station, St. ecpaccecte 3 South Canterbury).
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/periodicals/NZLIST19480528.2.14.1
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 466, 28 May 1948, Page 5
Word count
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382FARM VERSE New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 466, 28 May 1948, Page 5
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