{"id":43183,"date":"2025-07-17T06:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-16T18:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=43183"},"modified":"2025-07-13T20:21:38","modified_gmt":"2025-07-13T08:21:38","slug":"south-of-my-days-excerpt-by-judith-wright-from-the-tuesday-poem-backlist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2025\/07\/17\/south-of-my-days-excerpt-by-judith-wright-from-the-tuesday-poem-backlist\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cSouth of My Days\u201d (Excerpt) by Judith Wright — from the “Tuesday Poem’ Backlist"},"content":{"rendered":"

South of My Days <\/strong><\/em>, by Judith Wright, is one of my favourite poems. I love the language of this poem, which was first published in 1946, and the vivid evocation of landscape and sense of place, which speaks strongly to an Australian ethos and also to aspects of its history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I first shared it as part of the Tuesday Poem community, but like Monday’s post, I believe it merits the refeature. It’s timely, too, since it’s very much a winter poem and we’re in the midst of the Southern Hemisphere winter now.<\/p>\n

South of My Days (An Excerpt)<\/span><\/h3>\n

South of my days\u2019 circle, part of my blood\u2019s country,<\/span>
\nrises that tableland, high delicate outline<\/span>
\nof bony slopes wincing under the winter,<\/span>
\nlow trees, blue-leaved and olive, outcropping granite-<\/span>
\nclean, lean,\u00a0 hungry country. The creek\u2019s leaf-silenced,<\/span>
\nwillow choked, the slope a tangle of medlar and crabapple<\/span>
\nbranching over and under, blotched with a green lichen;<\/span>
\nand the old cottage lurches in for shelter.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh, they slide and they vanish<\/span>
\nas he shuffles the years like a pack of conjuror\u2019s cards.<\/span>
\nTrue or not, it\u2019s all the same; and the frost on the roof<\/span>
\ncracks like a whip, and the back-log break into ash.<\/span>
\nWake, old man. This is winter, and the yarns are over.<\/span>
\nNo-one is listening<\/span>
\nSouth of my days\u2019 circle<\/span>
\nI know it dark against the stars, the high lean country<\/span>
\nfull of old stories that still go walking in my sleep.<\/span><\/p>\n

~ by Judith Wright, 1915 \u2013 2000<\/p>\n

You can read the full poem on the All Poetry site, here<\/a>, and the Wikipedia article on Judith Wright, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South of My Days , by Judith Wright, is one of my favourite poems. I love the language of this poem, which was first published in 1946, and the vivid evocation of landscape and sense of place, which speaks strongly to an Australian ethos and also to aspects of its history. I first shared it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other-writers","category-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43183"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43186,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43183\/revisions\/43186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}