Once again, it’s time for our Poem of the Week! Today we’re focusing on memories of childhood. Our feature is a poem taken from the collection Smoke by Miriel Lenore, called ‘First Memory’.
As I read through Miriel Lenore’s collection of poems, I am absorbed into a different time. A different world. A vivid and moving portrait of rural Australia in the 1930s.
Her poetry reflects memories and moments of a childhood, the weaving together of individual lives, and the unravelling that comes with war and tragedy.
When I ponder Miriel’s reflections and memories, it is strange to me how familiar they feel, despite the 1930s rural setting.
I suppose that despite the years that pass us by, and the way the world changes so drastically for every new generation, there will always be familiar memories threaded between us. Familiar emotions we all share. Recognisable moments.
‘First Memory’ is not so very different from my own first stirrings of memory, even though I grew up in a very different world over fifty years later.
To read more of Miriel Lenore’s beautiful work, discover her latest poetry collection Smoke.
From her days as a botanist, to her years at an agricultural school in Fiji, to her passion for Australian rock art, Miriel Lenore has been working away at questions of ecology and place. Her poetry is also deeply grounded in her experience as a feminist, mother, grandmother and pioneer of a different sort. Smoke is Miriel Lenore’s seventh book of poetry.
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