The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #137739 Message #3389939
Posted By: mark gregory
14-Aug-12 - 05:53 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Francis MacNamara -Frank the Poet
Subject: RE: Origins: Francis MacNamara -Frank the Poet
Frank the Poet: A convict's Tour to Hell - an Australian radio documentary that was broadcast on 5 August and 9 August is now available on line for listening to or downloading as a podcast
August 2012 marks the 151st anniversary of the death of Francis MacNamara, better known in convict Australia as Frank the Poet. According to one of Australia's leading contemporary poets, Les Murray, MacNamara's epic work A Convict's Tour to Hell should be placed right at the beginning of English literature in Australia.
Frank's attitude to the colonial authorities, embodied in this now famous poem, can also be gauged from the punishments he received. Lashed 590 times, he was sent to solitary confinement, to the treadmill, and worked on chain gangs. All through his incarceration, Frank continued to entertain his fellow convicts with his rebellious verse.
see
http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/hindsight/frank-the-poet/4126734
cheers
Mark