Said Grenfell to My Spirit
Said Grenfell to My Spirit - fact Summary
Born on Grenfell Goldfield
The poem insists on the pull of birthplace as the defining source of identity. The speaker (addressed as Grenfell) reproves the poetic self for celebrating other landscapes — Mudgee, Pipeclay Flat, and a distant Norwegian father — but reminds it that the Grenfell goldfield shapes memory, voice and loyalty. It frames place as an inescapable origin that surfaces again and again in the poet’s work.
Read Complete AnalysesSaid Grenfell to my spirit, You’ve been writing very free Of the charms of other places, and you don’t remember me. You have claimed another native place and think it’s Nature’s law, Since you never paid a visit to a town you never saw: So you sing of Mudgee Mountains, willowed stream and grassy flat: But I put a charm upon you and you won’t get over that. O said Grenfell to my spirit, Though you write of breezy peaks, Golden Gullies, wattle sidings, and the pools in she-oak creeks, Of the place your kin were born in and the childhood that you knew, And your father’s distant Norway (though it has some claim on you), Though you sing of dear old Mudgee and the home on Pipeclay Flat, You were born on Grenfell goldfield – and you can’t get over that .
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