Every country needs a poet laureate

Politics and poetry have always been inextricably entwined. The satires of the king and Robinson's sycophantic praise of Macquarie reflected the opposing political forces that roiled colonial Australia. In 1860, the first book of verse by a woman to be published in South Australia, South Australian Lyrics, was overtly and deliberately political. The poet, Caroline Carleton, attempted to breathe life into a nascent Australian nationalism while remaining loyal to the Crown:

And Freedom's sons the banner bear,
No shackl'd slave can breathe the air,
Fairest of Britain's daughters fair-Australia!

Shelley described poets as "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." Many of Australia's most esteemed poets would agree. Judith Wright lamented the effect of colonialism on Australia's indigenous people ("Did we not know their blood channelled our rivers / and the black dust our crops ate was their dust?"). Mary Gilmore was a utopian socialist ("I split the rock; / I felled the tree: / The nation was- / Because of me!"). Banjo Paterson, whose "ghost may be heard as it sings in the Billabong," was certainly no fan of political correctness.

On solemn occasions, when our spirits need to soar, only poetry provides the necessary elevation. Consider "Dedication," the poem that Robert Frost could not read at Kennedy's inauguration. The poem begins by praising Kennedy for being the first American president ever to ask for a poem to be read at such a ceremony:

Summoning artists to participate
In the august occasions of the state
Seems something artists ought to celebrate.

After a brief review of America's tumultuous path from colonial outpost to world power, Frost bemoans the drabness of modern life: "Some poor fool has been saying in his heart / Glory is out of date in life and art."

The poem ends by proclaiming a new Augustan age in which politics and poetry combine:

Firm in our free beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday's the beginning hour.

Frost imbued the inauguration ceremony with dignity while portraying the new president as a noble philosopher-king. Yearning for Ancient Rome may seem anachronistic in today's prosaic world, but people still crave grace and splendour (think of the billions that watch royal weddings).

A few uplifting lines of poetry at official events would make an excellent contrast to the prattle of our bloviating politicians. It might even help their words to be remembered. Every Australian schoolchild "loves a sunburnt country / a land of sweeping planes." How many can recall anything said by Andrew Fisher, who was Prime Minister when Dorothea Mackellar wrote her famous poem?

At a vigil to mark the terrorist bombing of the Manchester Arena in 2013, politicians tried their best to reassure the mourners, but the only words that anyone present recall came from Tony Walsh's poem, This is the place: "And these hard times again, in these streets of our city, but we won't take defeat, and we don't want your pity."

Poetry can play an equally unifying role in Australia's public life. For example, Joel Deane's poem, Bushfire Elegy, captured a nation's mourning for the victim of bushfires: