Anthony Sharwood’s The Brumby Wars looks at the tension between environmental damage and sentimental attachment to Australia’s brumbies — and how Banjo Paterson’s poem feeds the myth.
Brumbies have a devoted following among high country locals, despite the fact that they were despised by colonial settler farmers. Their mythical status today owes a lot to cultural figures such as Banjo Paterson.
When Brian the farmer finished his poem the crowd went wild. Small wonder he earned the People’s Choice Award on the night. We were at a so-called poetry “slam” at a country hall in a place so tiny it…