Bernard O'Dowd (1866-1953) was known as Australia's first national poet. He was born in Beauford, Victoria to Ulster-born Catholic parents who had emigrated to Australia. His father was Bernard Dowd, a police constable and his mother was Ann Dowell (née Mulholland). His is said to have read John Milton's 17th century epic, 'Paradise Lost', at age 8, quiet an introduction to poetry. I have just written an Irishman's Diary about O'Dowd's life and times in the Irish Times newspaper. Read it here.
Bronze bust of Bernard O'Dowd by Charles Web Gilbert. Image source.
As mentioned in the newspaper article, O'Dowd corresponded regularly with the American poet, Walt Whitman. There is a great podcast called 'Poetry Militant: Walt Whitman and Bernard O'Dowd' about their letter writing relationship, available on the ABC website. It's well worth a listen. There is even a short clip where you can hear O'Dowd's voice. To my ear, his accent sounds a bit unusual. It's not a very strong Australian accent as you would recognise from Australians today, maybe it was tempered by his parents' Ulster accents? You can listen to it or download it here and make up your own mind.
Caricature of Bernard O'Dowd by the cartoonist David Low. Image source.
If you want to learn more about O'Dowd, you can read his entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography here. There is also an entry on him on the Australian Postal History & Social Philately available here. You can search on Trove (the National Library of Australia's digital library) for material related to O'Dowd, see here for more. Lastly, there is an article about O'Dowd's socialism in the journal 'Labour History' on JSTOR. It is from 1999 and is entitled 'Bernard O'Dowd's Socialism'. You can access it here.
No comments:
Post a Comment