‘I’d love an unburnt country’: Mercury cartoonist ‘Polly’ turns poet
Mercury cartoonist John ‘Polly’ Farmer has taken inspiration from poet Dorothea Mackellar’s iconic My Country in this bushfire tribute featured in tomorrow’s Sunday Tasmanian.
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MERCURY cartoonist John ‘Polly’ Farmer has put his unique spin on Australia’s current debate about bushfires.
The popular, long-running satirist with the Mercury and Sunday Tasmanian has taken to verse in this weekend’s contribution, taking inspiration from poet Dorothea Mackellar’s iconic My Country.
Farmer writes:
“I’d love an unburnt country,
Where the ‘new normal’ isn’t fire.
Where land and lives and homes are safe
and the future isn’t dire.”
Farmer’s commentary comes as residents in most of Victoria’s bushfire-stricken areas are welcoming an extended reprieve after the latest threat appears to have wrought less carnage than feared.
MERCURIAL WIT OF THE MAN BEHIND THE PEN
While an emergency warning remains for a fire near Mt Hotham, the Government has confirmed the Victorian state of disaster will end at midnight Saturday. But authorities stress the danger is far from over as 20 fires burn across the state and 12 watch and act warnings – down from 16 on Saturday morning – remain in place.
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