98 Poetry for Students
on Australian poetry through his association with
other writers who went on to be counted as the
greatest names in Australian literature, including
Vincent Buckley, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, R.A.
Simpson and Andrew Taylor. This was an educated
group, well-versed in their command of English,
and Dawe stood out in his use of the vernacular
and his command of dialect as it was used in his
particular area of the country at that particular time
in history.
Dawe left the University of Melbourne,
worked for a few years in a factory, and then joined
the Royal Australian Air Force, where he served
from 1959-1968, rising to the rank of Captain. Dur-
ing that time he began his literary career, publish-
ing poetry collections (includingNo Fixed Address,
which this poem is from), continued his college
studies, and married Gloria Desley. He received a
Bachelor of Arts from University of Queensland in
1969; a Master’s in 1975; and a Ph.D. in 1980. He
taught until the early 1990’s at University of South-
ern Queensland, and upon retiring from there was
awarded an honorary professorship. Dawe contin-
ues to write, is published frequently, and is recog-
nized as one of the leading literary voices in Aus-
tralia. He has received numerous awards for his
writing, including the Myer Award for Poetry in
1965; the Patrick White Literary Award in 1980;
and the Order of Australia, for his contribution to
Australian literature, in 1982.Poem Text
One day soon he’ll tell her it’s time to start
packing,
And the kids will yell “Truly?” and get wildly
excited for no reason,
And the brown kelpie pup will start dashing about,
tripping everyone up,
And she’ll go out to the vegetable-patch and pick
all the green tomatoes from the vines,
And notice how the oldest girl is close to tears 5
because she was happy here,
And how the youngest girl is beaming because she
wasn’t.
And the first thing she’ll put on the trailer will be
the bottling set she never unpacked from
Grovedale,
And when the loaded ute bumps down the drive
past the blackberry-canes with their last
shrivelled fruit,
She won’t even ask why they’re leaving this time,
or where they’re heading for
—she’ll only remember how, when they came 10
here,she held out her hands bright with berries,
the first of the season, and said:
’Make a wish, Tom, make a wish.’Poem Summary
Line 1:
This poem begins in the middle of some lives
that are already in progress, without indicating who
these people are or what has happened to them in
the past. The references to “he” and “her” in the
first line are left unexplained, so that readers only
come to know these characters through what hap-
pens in the poem. Similarly, there is no further in-
formation given about why “it’s time to start pack-
ing,” about where they are or why they have to
leave. To some degree, they are leaving because,
as the brief title of the poem states, they are
“drifters,” and as such it is in their nature to not
stay in one place. As the details of the poem are
going to explain, though, the entire family does not
agree with the idea of leaving just for the sake of
leaving. The mother, for example—the “her” of the
first line—has hopes of establishing some perma-
nence here. She is willing to leave in order to be
supportive of the father, which is an aspect of their
relationship that is clear in the poem’s first line,
when a major decision for the family is made by
him alone, without discussion, and told to her.Lines 2-4:
All of the activity in these lines serves to show
how unexpected the decision to move is. The nar-
rative voice makes a judgment on this activity by
commenting that the children’s excitement is “for
no reason,” but the poem has not yet established its
point of view. It would seem to be the man’s per-
spective given by the narrator. To the children,
there is quite a good reason to be excited, and to
people who lead stable lives it makes sense that
moving would cause some turbulence, but the man
is the one who is calm about the decision he an-
nounces, and so the excitement would seem to him
to be “for no good reason.” It is not until later that
the poem attaches itself to the woman’s point of
view, and that gives this phrase new meaning: in-
stead of meaning that the children shouldn’t be ex-
cited, it means that she wished they wouldn’t.
The scene around the house is chaotic, a sense
that Dawe adds to by having the dog run around
barking. A “kelpie” is an Australian sheepdog, de-
scended from the breed of collies, but in Scottish
the word also refers to an evil water spirit that takesDrifters