I have said many times that Murray Hartin is Australias modern-day Banjo Paterson. Murray Hartin is a poet, first and foremost. But from any perspective, and especially from the perspective of schoolchildren, he is a social commentator and a chronicler. From an educational point of view, young people live in difficult times. Of course, they have the benefit of all the fandango technology, and they can use it. But without a facility with language and without an appreciation of literature, we are all diminished. The stories that Murray Hartin tells are illustrative, often amusing, unapologetically blunt, but quintessentially Australian. Thankfully, Murray is able to give poetry relevance, interest and beautiful rhythms. As he says in his introduction, Songs are just poetry with music and chorus. But at a time when young Australians want to know and want to learn, want to be involved and want to be excited by our history, I sense that they are being betrayed. We have just emerged from awful experiences of drought and bushfire. Early on in this collection, Murray Hartin uses the rhythm of language and the euphony of rhyme to tell the story of drought with which too many Australians are unfamiliar. In the poem Rain from Nowhere, the farmer, like many today, through circumstances beyond his control, feels a failure and there is no place in life for failure, hed end it all tonight. Murray then shares with us the reality of family life in the bush. The farmer would prepare to blow away the blues. But when he checked the roadside mailbox he found a letter from his Dad. Kids, school kids, often think their dad does not understand. No piece of modern history better captures the tragedy and triumphs of the bush in drought. Murray Hartin is their literary spokesman. But just when you immerse yourself in the emotion of poetry like this, a new emotion is given expression by the same poet. 76We then laugh at the typical bushie experience, the farmer having his first ride in a plane, Turbulence. It is immensely disturbing that in too many classrooms today, poetry is seen as too difficult. Yet poetry, well taught, can inspire, inform and foster a better understanding of our place in the world. This anthology is essential reading Enjoyment is guaranteed. The pleasure that Murray Hartin has given to thousands and thousands of people, as he travels the bush, sharing his stories in verse that pleasure, through this anthology, is available to every schoolchi
