The First Letter
I am not going to praise your poetry to you B. O’D. BUT! you make the leaves & the grasses speak for themselves! great scald of demos i am yours! master bending down to meh! like a tree of man…
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Leaves of Glass
In late 2007 I received a grant from Arts Victoria to write a series of poems based on correspondence between Australian poet Bernard O’Dowd and Walt Whitman. The results were published as Leaves of Glass by Sydney-based publisher Puncher and Wattmann in 2013.
Sunbathing
This poem first appeared in Overland (2008) and was anthologized in Thirty Australian Poets (UQP, 2011).
Words From the Master
Revered master Dear Walt, my beloved master, my friend, my bard my prophet and apostle – Dear Bernard My dear master! Your good, long varied and loving letter came yesterday and has been welcome and nourishing to meh. My dear…
Greetings To Whitman
revered master dear walt, my beloved master, my friend, my bard my prophet and apostle my dear master my dear master my dear master my dear master and (may I say?) comrade my dear master my dear master B. O’D.
O’Dowd Seeks Whitman
I am 24, red hair, plain features, and a little too backward for my own good. B. O’D. 24yo dawn-red hair western districts oz poet seeks 80ish NS/SD amerikan dusky-grey hair ex-civil war nurse poet for inter-continental correspondences & hero…
Gowayz ob LOL: “O Kitteh! Meh Kitteh!”
"Similarly, poetry (e.g. the Psalms) can be written in such a way that it looks like a cat wrote it."
—LOLCat Bible Translation Project
Envoi
Brennan’s contemporary, Bernard O’Dowd, espoused the cause of nationalism, and attained a far greater reputation in his day; but unlike Brennan’s, his work has dated badly. Judith Wright, A Book of Australian Verse (1968)
O’Dowd Zero
This is the first draft of 'The First Letter', a poem which later appeared in Leaves of Glass.
Leaves of glass
It's hard to believe this poem was written in 2004, almost a decade before my second full-length poetry collection, also entitled Leaves of Glass, was released. Clearly, this poem has absolutely nothing to do with either Bernard O'Dowd or Walt Whitman. Nevertheless, it did go on to appear in LoG, under the title 'Leaves of Jazz'.