Tuesday 27 December 2011

What's in a Name

Ages ago, I mentioned a poem by AD Hope that featured Australian place names. Now I've discovered another, on a similar theme, this time by John Manifold:

The Map

Devil take our city-minded, imitative gran'dads who
Saddled us with Warwick, Ipswich, Bloomsbury, (near Yalbaroo),
Surbiton on Belyando - names like these will never do!

Mount Mistake, The Risk, The Blunder, Wilson's Downfall make a change,
But the names I like are those that show a sense of somewhere strange -
One Tree Hill and Wild Horse Mountain, Razorback and Nightcap Range -

And at sundown, when the hills are monstrous and the bunyip stirs,
I am pretty sure the native names are what the land prefers:
Murderer's Flat was our invention, but Eurunderee was hers.

Jundah, Thunda, Nocatunga, Thargomindah, Gunnewin,
Tarrewinnabar, Canungra, Tabragalba, Coolwinpin,
Ulandilla by the Maranoa where the songs begin.

Binna Burra, Bindebango, Mullumbimby - these belong! -
Bunya, Quinalow, Nanango, Tallebudgera, Durong
Xylophones among the timber,
   Bellbirds in the border mountains,
        Wallangarra, Woodenbong.

3 comments:

  1. I agree, Smiler. I think, if you read about Manifold, it becomes clear that he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder about his own 'grandads' and wanted to repudiate the background from which he came. It would be sad if the whole country had to follow suit.

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  2. John Manifold's poem evokes beautiful, magical places, like Jundah a small settlement in the midst of outback plain south of Longreah, and Wodenbong a mist shrouded village dropped into the rain forested Border Ranges of Queensland and New South Wales, Wallangarra another border town, on the Granite belt before Girraween where the 4'8 1/2" railways of New South Wales met the 3' 6" lines of QLD. An experience of these places adds a magic value to this fine poem.

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  3. Happy New Year, Mr Shera, those were lovely photographs of Christmas Eve

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