"Drifters" (1968) is a poem by Australian poet Bruce Dawe.
It was originally published in the literary journal Australian Letters vol. 8 no. 1, in January 1968, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Contents
Synopsis
A father will one day tell his wife and family to start packing, to put everything they own from their rental home into their "ute", leaving everything they loved, or hated, behind as they move on to their new location.
Critical reception
Noel Rowe, writing about the structure of the poem in his essay "Much More You Could Say: Bruce Dawe's poetry" for Sydney Studies in English noted that it is "important that the last word of 'Drifters is 'wish' since so much of the poem is concerned with the effects of decision-making and with oppressive and repressive acts of will."
In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page called it a "classic". He went on to explain that "It's not a triumph of metrical arrangement or a stunning succession of images. It's not about some major figure in our political landscape or a moment of blazing spiritual insight. It is, however, a masterpiece of tone and understatement – and a striking example of what free verse can do at its most subtle."
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication in Australian Letters in 1968 it was reprinted as follows:
An Eye for a Tooth : Poems by Bruce Dawe, Cheshire, 1968
Condolences of the Season : Selected Poems by Bruce Dawe, Longman Cheshire, 1971
Twelve Poets, 1950-1970 edited by Alexander Craig, Jacaranda Press, 1971
The Land's Meaning edited by L. M. Hannan and B. A. Breen, Macmillan, 1973
What's Yours? : An Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by Alvie Egan, Victorian Foundation on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence, 1977
Sometimes Gladness : Collected Poems 1954-1978 by Bruce Dawe, Longman Cheshire, 1978
The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Melbourne University Press, 1980
The Sydney Morning Herald, 22 November 1980
The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981
My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985
Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1988
Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann, Heinemann, 1991