Kym Milne, our newest Service member, who has done so much for us came up with the idea of running a 2025 ANZAC Day Poetry Competition and assisted by VP Patsy Biscoe, turned it into an inaugural event that we expect will continue annually.
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Kym advertised the event and, we received numerous submissions from aspiring poets via email and post. A small panel of judges was assembled to assess the entries and this included our in-house bush poet, Maurie O'Brien who is a published author of his title,
ANZAC Poems and Other Sprigs of Wattle that you can read about in an earlier post
here.
The judges completed their assessment of poetry and nominated two joint winners, both of whom are surprisingly only 14 years old: Su and Ryka.
Both read their poems at our Dawn Service and again at our luncheon for those who didn't attend the Dawn Service.
At the luncheon, each was presented with a
Certificate of Appreciation and advised that their names will appear on the above perpetual plaque which at the time wasn't completed.
The plaque has now been completed and has a chain horizontally across the bottom (it's straighter than it looks in the image) with a suspended military dog tag indicating the competition and the winners' names. As a perpetual plaque, each year, another dog tag will be hung across the bottom suspended by the chain.
The winning poems follow:
Stillness of the Dawn
In the stillness of the dawn, a bugle softly cries,
As we gather 'neath the sky with hearts both full and wise.
With heads bowed low and tear-filled eyes, we remember those who stood,
Brave souls who fought in distant lands, for freedom's greater good.
The spirit lingers in the breeze, on shores so far aways,
With every wave that breaks the sand, we honour ANZAC Day.
Through lines of courage, etched in time, their stories must be told
Of sacrifice and comradeship, of bravery oh so bold.
For every poppy that we place, a gratitude we share
To those who answered duties (sic) call, face the fight with care.
Yet in our hearts, a sombre ache, for lives forever changed.
The cost of war, a heavy price, for peace that they arranged.
So let us stand and raise a toast, to those who pave the way,
Their legacy of honour lives, in every word we say.
And though the years may drift away, their memory won't fade,
For on this sacred ANZAC Day, our heartfelt debt is paid.
By Ryka Dowley
1914
The sky was never silent here.
Even in the breath between the barrage,
we heard the ghosts of yesterday,
boots sinking into the mire,
missives folded tight against our chests,
names whispered like supplications to the dust.
The trench is a purgatory of waiting.
Of hands, pallid and trembling in the cold,
of eyes fixed upon the ashen beyond,
of home distilled to a flickering spectre.
A sunburnt crest, a wattle’s golden flare,
a scream of rage, a battlefield’s bloodshed.
They told us we would be legends,
that we would inscribe eternity upon the earth,
but the earth only swallowed us whole,
consumed our marrow, our bodies, our very names,
and left behind only stillness;
sprawling from the ridges of Gallipoli
to the fields where poppies dare to rise.
Above, the ethers simmered in a furious red,
like a cauldron brimming and roiling over,
churned with embers, blackened and bitter,
ash swirling like pepper upon the molten soup.
But the flowers remain,
carmine as the dawn we shall never behold,
soft as the hands we longed to clasp.
They do not wail, nor do they weep,
yet in solemn grace, they endure.
A requiem in crimson.
Lest we forget.
By Su Nguyen
We think you will agree that the poetry by these young ladies is an exemplar for others striving to be poets.
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