Our Country

By Catherin J Pascal Dunk, aged 12¹

Reading by Ken Tomaro, USA

We love our little country,²
a land of aches and pains;
of left and right wing governments,
of cricket and cocaine.

We love its workmens’³ wages,
we love its deserts dry;
its inflation and unemployment,
would make a grown man⁴ cry.

There are some rather shady deals,
though I wouldn’t like to pry;
they’d like to visit our Pine Gap⁵—
but I can’t tell you why.

We have the impression
that they really like beer,
and all walk ’round
with stomachs out to here.⁶

The churches are a great big mess,
no-one even goes there to confess.
The animals are rather tame,
although not noted for their fame.⁷

We think it is a strange land
of kangaroos and sheep,
of koalas and reptilians,
of wombats and of creep.

The busy roaring highways,
the sky so full of planes.
They changed all things to decimal—
oh isn’t that a pain?!

When they cheated in the America’s Cup,⁸
I wished that I could blow them up!⁹
But now I kind of like them,
I even feel some passion,
for those poor weirdos from down under
who have to live with droughts and thunder.

Koala picture from Pexels
Many thanks to Ken Tomaro for the excellent reading!

1. I wrote this piece for year 7 poetry in 1986 (aged 12), which is when I first came to love writing poetry. The teacher doubted it was my own work. How would I know about Pine Gap? It was my own work. I have changed only some punctuation and line and stanza breaks here. I suggest some inclusive language amendments in these notes. The poem is a parody of the popular Australian poem ‘My Country’ by Dorothea Mackellar, which has also been put to music. I later sang the original with my school choir sang it for the Bicentenary of colonization (boo! hiss!) in 1988. In the work I am (clumsily) calling out US cultural imperialism. And sadly, pretty much nothing has changed in the last 40 years except to accelerate and intensify. We’re still waiting for our politicians to wake up. And…Don’t. Underestimate. Kids. ↩︎
2. An American is narrating the poem, talking about Australia, their pet. ↩︎
3. Worker’s wages ↩︎
4. Grownup ↩︎
5. Still in use and apparently helping with genocide. ↩︎
6. This is a reference to the infamous Australian beer belly. These days I’m more wary of stereotyping/fat shaming but not sure how I could reword. ↩︎
7. Now, our animals are certainly noted worldwide for their fame, and are far from fame. This was ironic. The poem is narrated by an American…maybe with some residual jealousy of our critters/tourism and a certain quota of ignorance. ↩︎
8. Australia won the America’s Cup in 1983 with a new winged keel design. There were allegations that the design was a form of cheating, or not allowable, but anyway we kept the cup that year. ↩︎
9. I mean, they could. Let’s hope they don’t. ↩︎