Wonthaggi celebrates National Poetry Day with community broadsheet
Myli community library in Wonthaggi in collaboration with the Robert Smith Collection celebrated National Poetry Day with a special literary event to celebrate the launch of a community broadsheet featuring local poetry.
TO celebrate National Poetry Day Myli community library in Wonthaggi hosted a special literary event to celebrate the launch of a community broadsheet featuring local poetry.
Paying tribute to this year's national theme for Poetry Day ‘Wonder’ local wordsmiths, art historians, and printmakers came together to share original poetry and unveil a highly anticipated community arts collaboration with the Robert Smith Collection.
The event featured beloved local author and poet Meryl Brown Tobin, who served as the day’s guest speaker. Tobin captivated attendees with her own evocative work, Wonthaggi More Than a Century On which opens with the moving lines, ‘Wonthaggi. Place of wind and rain, here storm clouds come again, again.’
Meryl’s beautiful poem sets a reflective tone, tracing the region's transformation from its raw 1909 tent-town origins to more than a century of rapid growth.
Other featured poets in ‘The Broadsheet 1’ include Mark Stevenson with ‘Is Wonthaggi the place for me?’, Kevin Walsh with ‘Wonthaggi coal miners and Hill 60 – Same, same, but different’, and Kathy Wiltshire with her poem ‘The Whistle of Wonthaggi’.
Following the readings, the library pulled back the curtain on a unique community project spearheaded by Rosemary Forde, the Acting Cultural Programs Coordinator for Bass Coast Council and Trent Walter, the inaugural Robert Smith Collection fellow.
Ms Forde who manages the historic Robert Smith Collection of Australian art and printmaking in partnership with Myli expressed her excitement about collaborating directly with the Wonthaggi library and its dedicated poetry group.
The Robert Smith collection was built throughout the life of the late art historian and critic Robert Smith and is currently on long-term loan to Myli. The collaborative series of works in The Broadsheet 1 form the centrepiece of this new partnership.
"There is a real interest and strong desire for poetry in this community," Forde noted.
"The Broadsheet has a Wonthaggi theme past, present, and future."
Organisers are encouraging community members to get involved in the project as The Broadsheet develops into a living monument of Wonthaggi’s evolving regional identity.
The Robert Smith Collection highlights working-class history and humanist values, bridging global art with the specific heritage of Wonthaggi's coal miners.
Historically, coal miners from Wonthaggi enlisted in the Great War, and trained at Broadmeadows Camp before sailing for England. Due to their specialised skills, several were selected for Tunnelling Companies, executing dangerous missions to dig beneath enemy trenches and plant explosives, most famously at Hill 60 near Ypres, Belgium.
Comprising 596 works spanning from 1500 to 2000, the collection focuses deeply on artists expressing social commitment. Australian pieces range from S.T. Gill’s mid-19th-century goldfield commentaries to an extensive 83-work collection by Noel Counihan’.
Other notable contemporaries represented include Vic O’Connor, George Luke, and James Wigley. Through these creators, the collection preserves a powerful visual record of industry, manual labour, and the enduring spirit of the working class.
