My Poetry - for Students and Teachers

Since my poetry is the most likely reason that people will visit my website, I thought I should put some information about my poetry, and especially about that poem, on my blog.

A couple of years ago in Britain, some English Literature types were putting together a website, listing 120 war poems of the 20th century. Somehow, through word of mouth, they heard about my poetry, and decided to include one of my poems, He Was A Mate, on their site. As it happens, I am the only living Australian on that list. In the alphabetical list of poets I appear somewhere between Thomas Hardy and Rudyard Kipling. As you might imagine, I was quite stunned and deeply honoured when I saw that list.

That war poems site must be quite a popular one, because since my name appeared on it I have been contacted by teachers and students at university and high school level who have been teaching or studying my poetry around the world. So far they have come from Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Britain, Italy, Germany, Holland, Finland and Hong Kong.

For those students and teachers, here is some background information about me and my poetry.

I served as a young Australian infantry soldier in the Vietnam War in 1967-68. It was an interesting time to be in Vietnam, as the Tet Offensive triggered the heaviest fighting of the war. Among many other operations, I participated in the biggest Australian battle of the Vietnam War, at Fire Support Bases Coral and Balmoral, in May/June 1968.

As a result of my Vietnam service, I am now on a full war service disability pension. In 1987 I began writing poems about my experience. This came out of the blue, as I had never previously written a poem in my life.

With one of my earliest poems, I wanted to portray some of the thoughts that go through the mind of a young soldier when one of his close friends is killed. I thought about my own feelings on the death of my mate Gary Polglase, on Operation Pinnaroo in April 1968, and tried to express them in a way that other veterans could identify with.

At the time, I had been reading the works of C J Dennis, an Australian poet of the First World War era. Dennis wrote in a unique style, combining the Australian vernacular with Shakespearean form. It is undoubtedly because the poetic voice of Dennis was in my head that the words of this poem came to me in lines of iambic pentameter.

I wanted the soldier in my poem to be like me in 1968: young, unsophisticated, educated only to high school level, and forced for the first time in his life to think about some pretty deep issues. He needed to be struggling to find the vocabulary to deal with what he was feeling.

So this is what I came up with:

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He Was A Mate

He was a mate, a real good mate 'e was,
A friendly sort of feller, liked a joke;
And if it had to happen, it's a shame
It had to happen to such a decent bloke.

But - ah, fair dinkum, don't it make you wonder
What God in Heaven's thinkin' about up there;
The way He chooses who to sacrifice
To me somehow it doesn't quite seem fair.

You'd think He'd want to take a bloke like me
Who'd be no loss to no-one here on Earth;
But no, He always seems to pick the best
Whose life amounts to ten times what mine's worth.

But I suppose He'd say it's not His fault,
It's us and how we treat our fellow man;
And if too many good blokes' lives are lost
We can't just blame it all on His great plan.

He slung us here on Earth and said "Righto,
Get on with it you blokes, the world is yours";
But all we've done is fight among ourselves
And destroy each other with our endless wars.

Now, there's a sort of aching here inside,
I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong;
But a soldier can't afford to feel this way,
He's got to grit his teeth and carry on.

So how's a bloke supposed to deal with this?
I know they trained me well, I can't complain;
But this is somethin' you don't learn about
When they teach you how to play the soldier's game.

They teach you how to shoot and how to kill,
You even learn which enemy to hate;
But nowhere in their training do you learn
How to live with the loss of a real good mate.

********************

When I came home from Vietnam at the end of 1968, I was 20 years old. I took my discharge from the army shortly after, and in the next few decades I was never able to settle. I worked at more than forty jobs in twenty years. These ranged from the fairly normal (public servant, bank teller, computer operator, computer programmer) to the more exotic (model, stuntman, private investigator and others too numerous to mention, including a stint on an offshore oil rig in the North Sea.)

Around 1980, like many other Vietnam veterans, I became politically radicalised by the Agent Orange issue. It became apparent that the health of Vietnam veterans and their children may have been damaged by herbicides and pesticides that were used in Vietnam. This need never have become an issue, except that when we sought information from our governments they chose to lie to us. The Vietnam Veterans Association of Australia was formed to fight this issue, and I became its National Secretary. I also became one of the instigators of a movement to hold a Welcome Home Parade for Australia Vietnam veterans.

In November 1986, after years of political struggle and health difficulties, the National President of the VVAA, Phill Thompson, took his own life. This had a profound effect on me, and I decided to take time out. I moved from Sydney to Perth, and it was during this period of rest that I started writing poetry.

During my years in Perth, I enrolled as a part-time student at the University of Western Australia. I graduated some years later with a first class honours degree in History, and began working on a PhD. I decided to quit the PhD recently when my son was born, although I may return to it one day. I am still active in the veteran community, though only at a local level, and only within the constraints of my health and my parenting duties.

If you want any more information about me and my life, you can find it in the personal pages of my website.