So yer got er competishun going for pote loorets? Well, Im goin to ave a vote anyhow, though I dont like potry; its pretty an all that sort, but it wastes all its blanky time tryin to be pretty stead of sayin somethin. Its like a bloke wot as a few acres er good land goin usen most of it for a pretty flower gardin stead of plantin crops or cabbages right up to is bloomin front door, as e oughter. Some blokes, like Grant Hervey, seems to think as how yer cant even ask Australia to shut its back-gate an clean up its gun ready for the Japs without making yer bloomin request rhime pretty. Fancy torkin to a great country erbout its ennemys in the same silly kinder sing-song way as yer tell the kids erbout the kow jumpin over the moon or Marys little lamb follerin er erbout! Now, I arst yer strate, owd it be if I was to wake me boy in the mornin like this: "Rise up, Bill! go milk the kows, and get to the creamery by nine somehows"? Hed think Id gone fair off me bloomin onion. An very likely e wouldnt know it was potry at all, cause e wouldnt know it should be written in two lines. Anyhow, if yer must give yer tin halo to someone, youd better give it to Hugh McCrae, because he dont write often, and when he does its generally somethin short. I like "Kodak" pretty well too, because I dont think he really
berleeves e is a pote; I think es pullin the other pote blokes legs, and chuckin off at them all the time. Hes good too, because he owns up to the way potes ave to dodge the bailiffs, and ow they never pay their board. Id do me best to make all the other potes qualify for that other kinder wreath -- the white un, like a life-belt, wot they gives yer to wear goin over the Jordan. Yours trooly,
NITTY ARÆMO
First published in The Bulletin, 23 April 1908
You can read poems by Grant Hervey here, here, here, and here.
You can read poems by "Kodak" here, here, and here.
I haven't transcribed any poems by Hugh McCrae as yet.
See the previous postings in this sequence: July 25 August 1.
