Over the seemingly short period of my thesis research, I have been gathering and collecting a growing library of Australian Great War poetry books and articles, and now I have developed quite a library. Like all bibliophiles, I love libraries and books, but this one is rather special, if not unique, not only because of its subject matter, but also because of its location. Imagine if you will, a library of books about Australian poetry from the Great War, and its not in Canberra, of Sydney or Melbourne, or for that matter, anywhere in Australia, but rather, in a small town in the north of Poland, called, Oliwa, just near to the University of Gdansk. I feel compelled, as the custodian of this library, to create a library card, but I think this library is one in which books can't be borrowed, at least, not taken from the library. At least I, the librarian, am an Australian, and the care of these books is uppermost in my mind.
When I first started to think about Australian Great War poetry, I had, for the most part, no books dealing with the subject. Just a few books which had something inside, but I didn't seem to realise this at the time. Naively, I believed that it would be as easy as finding books about English Great War poetry, of which there is a plethora, and I have many. Well, I was brought down to earth very quickly. It seemed for a while, that the more I searched, the more I began to think there was nothing in print. But I was wrong; oh, how wrong.
I began cataloguing what I did have, which was one or two poems in an old book about Australian war poetry, or just Australian poetry in general. I grabbed hold of a book I had called "Fighting Words - Australian War Writing" (ed. by Carl Harrison-Ford), which had a 1st World War section in it, and I eagerly collected all the poems from this section to begin my list of poets and poems. Such poets as Harley Matthews and Leon Gellert ('Before Action', 'A Night Attack', 'The Attack at Dawn') appeared in these pages, along with others, and some anonymous poems. I didn't realise at the time, but 'Banjo' Paterson was a Great War poet as well, and he had a short story in the book. Of course, I knew that Paterson was a poet, but I never knew he wrote poetry for the Great War. Others, such as Charles Bean (Bean's 'Abdul' appears in the book), Martin Boyd and Frederick Manning also appeared in this book, and over time I discovered their poetry as well. Yes, you read correctly: Charles Bean the Australian war correspondent wrote poetry.
After I had practically read these poems to death, I became so hungry for Australian Great War poetry that I began trolling the internet for leads. It didn't take long before I began finding names and poems, and soon, books. One of the first I came across was Frank Westbrook's 'Anzac and After - A Collection of Poems'. Within the pages of this book is some of the finest war poetry I have ever read. Two of the best poetic stanzas I have ever read are in his poem, 'Dawn', written just prior to the Anzac landing, which points to their poignancy and value. "Duty and danger call me from the darkness, / The hour of my baptism fiery draws nigh; / I wonder and dream whether destiny waits me / With kisses of welcome or one brief goodbye. // And now I make ready for death or his master, / This thought as the moments in flight hurry by, / If I live 'its my privilege all for my country, / For Australia to live, for Australia to die."
Imagine penning such words on the eve of the Anzac landing: "For Australia to live, for Australia to die." Thank God, Frank lived and made it back to Australia and the two brown eyes he clearly loved in a poem by that name.
Oh, two brown eyes where love-lit shadows swim
Like pools asleep and lulled by evening’s hymn.
How can such two brown lustrous eyes
Disturb my dreams with dreams of warmer skies,
Of singing birds and scented flowers of spring,
And sounds of Austral’s bushlands whispering?
Ah, I forget the miles of heaving sea
That distance flings ‘twixt love and me
And two brown eyes.
Frank Westbrook is probably the most underrated Australian Great War poet of them all. He is a poet of tremendous depth and power, and the visions he moulds and the sentiments he arouses are both inspiring and mournful in their sensually expressive evocations. In his poem ‘Brown Eyes’, he uses a very interesting poetic structure. He uses 4 heroic couplets to form 8 lines, followed by the 9th line, which is the standout line of the poem. It is a half line which rhymes with the 2nd couplet, reminding us of the most intimate moment in the poem. It is an incredibly beautiful poem, filled with the soldier’s longing for his lover back in Australia, a place he also clearly loves. The soldier of the poem finds that his dreams, as they are in war, are happily disturbed by dreams of home where his love is, where the sound, smells and sights of his life await him, and where the owner of two brown eyes, the windows to the soul, waits in some longing love. Westbrook shows us in this poem, that Anzacs were more than capable of holding deeply romantic thoughts while entrenched in the miseries of war.
I even came across a wonderful web-site for antiquated books, and it yielded a large number of books, such as Adock's 'The Anzac Pilgrim's Progress', Gerardy's 'Australian Light Horse Ballads and Rhymes', Gellert's 'Songs of a Campaign' and Potter's 'Not Theirs the Shame Who Fight'. Of course, there were many others, but my collection was now growing quite quickly, and becoming very impressive.
Probably two of the most important books I got was Charles Bean's 'The Anzac Book' and Patsy Adam-Smith's 'The Anzacs'. (I did actually already have 'The Anzacs', but forgot about it.) They are very well known books in the general canon of Australian war literature, and they have given a huge number of poets and poems to my lists. The acquisition of these books then got me busy cataloguing names and poems, but then I began to think about campaigns. The Anzac Book was all about Gallipoli, and The Anzacs was mostly pre-1916, but what about the Desert Campaign and the Western Front? So, I began to research the poets I had and looked at what biographies I could find. One of the best web-sites I used was the Austlit web-site, which has hundreds of biographies about literary Australians. This helped me find out where the poet had fought, or if the poet had been a civilian, born in Australia or overseas, and so on. However, every time I sat down to do some research, I came across a small or big lead for other poets.
After some time, I became inundated with poets and poems; so much so, that I started to think I could never collect everything, if not from a logistic point of view, then from a time point of view. After all, I was supposed to be writing a thesis, not cataloguing Australian Great War poets. The initial idea was to chose four of five poets and write about them in relation to my thesis topic, but I realised that this could never be meaningful. I had to include a broader range of poets and poems, and that meant that I had to keep on searching. There was a handful of articles about Australian Great War poetry, rather dealing more with specifics and neglecting the broader canon. But these articles did give me some names to work with.
Over the span of my research, I have come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, this work is more important than my thesis. Of course, I believe that my thesis will be of prime importance for the canon, but the canon itself is vital for helping us understand the development of the Australian national character, which is primarily what my thesis wants to address. So, I can happily work on both.
The development of this unique library was not so much a planned action on my part, but rather a happy coincidence of logic; the more I searched, the more I got. Yet, it soon became apparent to me that, while looking for books in libraries and book shops (in Australia and elsewhere) and on the internet, I seemed to hold in my hands (so to speak) the largest collection of literature, prose and poetry, on the subject of Australian Great War poetry. Much to my surprise, and even delight, I realised that I had become the custodian of the biggest Australian Great War library in the world, and this library was not in Australia, but Poland, where I live.
I have a collection of over 100 books in my office, as well as 100 or more sheet music booklets, which is, by the way, the unofficial site of the library. Perhaps I will start referring to my office as the AGWP Library. The wife refers to my office as "The Cave", so, if I am to be the resident troglodyte, then I will happily not leave as Plato might suggest, but rather stay inside and look at the shadows of history on the cave wall. Of course, not only are there books of poetry and prose, but there is a collection of articles, newspaper clippings, magazines and a host of one-off poems, or two or three which seem to have no home. But all of these are collected and put into categories, which make up more books which I have put together.
It is my plan to create several books of the poems which don't appear in a book, so that they can be properly catalogued, as well as being in a format which is easier to access and more pleasant for reading. Over the course of time, the collection of articles will increase as well, and there are over 30 planned articles I will write on Australian Great War poetry. It is hoped that all of this information may be accessible on the official AGWP web-site, so that researchers, teachers and students, along with those who just love the subject, can have a place to go where they can find information. Perhaps not everyone will be able to visit my office, the AGWP Library (or Cave), but at least there will be a place where people can begin their journey towards better understanding of Australian Great War poetry.
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