Fairfax Corporation, Banjo Paterson and Hunter White leaning on a railing, New South Wales, ca. 1930, nla.obj-162398614
How do you find Australian poetry?
- select the Browse alphabetically tab
- choose subjects from the drop-down list
- Type your keywords in the search bar
- Australian Poets & their Works: A Reader's Guide (1996) by William Wilde. An alphabetical listing of poets, collections of verse, famous poems, folk songs, prizes, journals, and anthologies, covering all the major Australian poets from the nineteenth century to the 1990s
- The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse (1996), chosen by Les A. Murray. A collection of Australian poems chosen to reflect the poetic tradition from the early days of European settlement to the present day.
Where can you find poetry in our online databases?
Find these databases in the National Library's eResources
AustLit: the resource for Australian literature a key resource for information about Australian writers and writing covering the 1780s to the present. With an author search, you can find lists of publications, collections of poetry, criticisms, links to online access for selected poems, awards lists and biographies of major poets.
If you are a registered member of the National Library you can access AustLit from home.
Case Study
Australian ballads
I am a Year 8 student and I have to recite an Australian ballad. Do you have any suggestions? I live in Queensland, and can't come to the Library in Canberra.
A ballad is a simple poem that tells a story. There is usually some repetition, for example, a line or phrase might be repeated.
1. Starting with the National Library Catalogue, we can search for 'Australian Ballads' or 'Australian Folk Poetry'. In order to find poetry online, we can limit the results to 'Online'.
2 .Listen for a Moment: A Small Book of Australian Ballads is by Tom Ford and can be read online through Pandora. The Stockman (page 24), and Antarctic Fleet (page 30) are two ballads we might consider using.
4. We can also look for poetry in AustLit. To find the full-text of poems, use the Advanced Search, and check the box: 'Full text available'. Type in the name of an author, such as Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson or CJ Dennis, or simply search for 'ballad'. We can browse, using the left menu to limit our results, to find a suitable ballad. The blue arrow next to the title goes to the full text, when it is available online.