Mapooram

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First published inThe Bulletin
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Publication date17 February 1960
"Mapooram"
by Roland Robinson
First published inThe Bulletin
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Publication date17 February 1960
Lines27

"Mapooram" is a 1960 poem by Australian poet Roland Robinson.[1]

It was first published in The Bulletin on 17 February 1960, [2] and later in the poet's collections and other Australian poetry anthologies. The poem carries an explanatory line that reads: "(Related by Fred Biggs, Ngeamba tribe, Lake Carjellingo)."

In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page noted "Doctrinaire readers, on both sides of the racial divide, might see Robinson's 're-write' of Biggs' story as an 'appropriation', as yet another European rip-off. This was certainly a risk Robinson took, and was aware of, but ultimately the poem is its own justification...Fortunately, the poem turns out to be great story, subtly retold by Robinson in a style entirely appropriate to the purpose, a language that is at once his own and, in a different way, Fred Biggs' too."[3]

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