Bourke - Poetry on a Plate — On the road again

Noeline: We arrived in Bourke on Tuesday August 8 at what turned out to be a wonderful experience at Kidman's Camp Caravan Park, on the river in North Bourke. It is the type of park where you can't pre-book but rather you just " rock up" from around 3.30 pm onwards and request a site.

View of our rig parked in Kidman Camp early morning

As we booked in, Paul noticed a brochure on the counter about a dinner event that the camp puts on for selected nights during the week, called "Poetry on a Plate". It starts with an evening meal of slow cooked beef casserole, rice and dhal with sour cream. This was followed by a lemon curd tart for dessert, interspersed with songs, poetry and yarns, with tea and coffee, all around a campfire under the stars. Sounded a real taste of the outback to us so we signed up then and there.

What a delight!😘 Peter and " Brownie" were the chefs and started cooking the meal at 10am that morning. A delicious meal, very tasty and filling after our journey.

The usual MC and performer for the night is a young bard called Andrew Hull but on the Tuesday that we attended, our MC was Frank Povah. Frank is the local newspaper editor and describes himself on his card as a musician, raconteur, and versifier.

Frank Povah - Musician, Raconteur and Versifier

He entertained over 50 + of us for two hours with poetry, stories, songs, (both a cappella and accompanying himself on guitar), larrikin humour and also playing a waltz on an autoharp that he had composed 40 years ago. A memorable evening under the stars, on a cold night but the heat from the campfires keeping us warm.

Paul: I particularly enjoyed the breadth of experience that Frank provided in the entertainment he presented, with songs ranging from folk songs to Blues and Negro Spirituals, poems of his own composition and by others and also sharing some indigenous tales related to the Dreamtime. All done with respect for those who composed them or handed them down. He also told us about a social history archive managed by the National Library of Australia called the Trove in which a range of his material and many other lesser know artists, poets and composers of folk songs are included. It made me want to search it out and explore it for myself.

I've included a gallery of photos from the night, (very grainy i'm afraid as there was very little light other than the campfire). Frank kindly also gave me permission to include some video clips I recorded of some parts of his performance, which you will find below, after I have mastered the challenges of converting and optimising video for the web and uploading them to Vimeo.

Poetry on a Plate - 1

Night of good food, fun, verse and music around the campfire

Poetry on a Plate - 2

Frank Povah telling us the indigenous tale on the origin of the moon

Poetry on a Plate 3

Some of us had our own crackling fire before us

Poetry on a Plate - 4

Frank Povah sharing a folk song while accompanying himself on guitar.

Poetry on a Plate - 5

More songs from Frank, just illuminated by the campfire

Poetry on a Plate - 6

Frank playing the autoharp stringed instrument. He played a waltz he composed 40 years ago.

Poetry on a Plate - 7

A great night was had by all!

Use the Left and Right arrows provided to move through the gallery of photos.

A good nights sleep was followed by another cool morning. Paul was up early doing sunrise photography at the river and wharf for the the paddle wheeler Jandra, a small gallery of the photos are shown below.