23 Herb Wharton AM

When the poet Seamus Heaney died on 30 August 2013, the news saddened me because of a connection forged years earlier. At the time Heaney won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995, I was working in Japan and would often go into Tokyo on the weekends to buy books and English language newspapers from Maruzen bookstore. On one trip I purchased his first volume of poetry, Death of a Naturalist and a recording of him reading from his poems titled Stepping Stones. I would listen to the tapes and luxuriate in the Irishman’s resonant and melodic voice. It was a soothing respite from broken Japanese and baby English.

On returning to Australia in 1998, I went to stay with my beloved grandparents in Blackall in the Central West. While there a ‘Queensland Outback Writer’s Safari’ came to town.

The performance poet Komninos Zervos and former stockman turned writer, Kooma Elder, poet and author Herb Wharton both read from their works published by The University of Queensland Press, including Herb’s ground-breaking book, Cattle Camp: Murrie Drovers and Their Stories.

While having a scone and a cup of tea with Herb, I mentioned my favourite poet, Seamus Heaney. It turned out Herb had met Seamus when he visited Australia in 1994. To my astonishment, he took out of his rucksack a copy of Heaney’s poem ‘Tollund’. It was a personal copy signed with a warm dedication and given as a present to Herb. That occasion always stayed with me. It made me realise that from Ireland to Japan to the Australian bush the unexpected rewards of storytelling and poetic beauty connect us all.

On returning to my alma mater, UQ, in 2014 to take up the position of Fryer Librarian, I discovered we held Herb Wharton’s papers in the Fryer Library. Searching the collection, I couldn’t believe it when I found the inscribed copy of ‘Tollund’ folded inside his book, Kings with Empty Pockets.

To Herb Wharton
a voice and presence in Australia
Slaintè!
Seamus Heaney

Memories of that first meeting at the Blackall Arts Centre came back to me. A happy time from another century when my grandparents were still alive, and I was filled with a passion for literature and a desire to ‘hazard the pure space of experience’ as the poet Gwen Harwood once described the ‘intimate stranger’ that was her younger self.

ln August 2019, the Australian Honours and Awards Secretariat contacted me to ask if I would fill out a ‘referee response form’ for Herb Wharton. He had been nominated for an Order of Australia award. I was honoured to support the award and delighted when Herb was made a Member of the Order of Australia for ‘significant service to the literary arts, to poetry, and to the Indigenous community.’ In 2020, Herb Wharton AM came to Brisbane to receive his medal at Government House. During his stay, our mutual friend, fellow writer Lesley Synge, brought him to the Fryer Library. We spent hours talking as Herb looked through photo albums in his collection and reminisced about the whirlwind of writing adventures he experienced on a journey that took him from Cunnamulla to Paris and London. I showed him the inscribed copy of Tollund. He smiled, holding it as if it were a talisman. In that moment, those no longer with us felt present again and I gave thanks for a second blessing.

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Biography

Simon Farley is the Fryer Librarian at the University of Queensland’s Fryer Library. After completing an Honours degree in English Literature at the University of Queensland he taught overseas before returning to Australia. His previous appointments have included archival and curatorial roles at the Queensland State Archives and the State Library of Queensland’s John Oxley Library where he was Curator of Military Collections. Simon is the President of the Bibliographical Society of Australia and New Zealand and editor of the journal Fryer Folios.