WHEN three-time Australian champion bush poet Greg North first wandered into a local cafe poetry night more than 20 years ago, he had no sense of how it would change his course.
“That night changed my life,” North said.
“I got inspired watching people perform Australian poetry, and from there I started presenting.”
That moment of inspiration has now led North to The Life and Rhymes of Banjo Paterson, a touring performance retracing the extraordinary 1901 lecture tour of Australia’s most beloved poet, Banjo Paterson.
North brings the show to Ipswich, marking more than a century since Paterson himself stood in the city during that ambitious national journey.
North’s fascination with Paterson deepened around a decade ago when he was appointed resident poet at a caravan park in Winton – the Queensland town forever linked to Waltzing Matilda.
“I figured I’d better learn a bit more about Waltzing Matilda – and I got a bit obsessive,” he said.
That obsession led to three books, extensive research, and eventually a bold idea: to re-enact Paterson’s original lecture tour town by town, on the same dates.
Beginning in New South Wales, North followed Paterson’s path through Sydney, Newcastle, the Hunter Valley, Yass, Wagga Wagga and Albury, before heading west to Adelaide, across to Tasmania, and then on to New Zealand – two performances in the South Island and around 20 in the North Island.
From there, the tour returned to Queensland, moving up the coast and inland through Charters Towers, then back down through Ipswich, Toowoomba and Warwick, before crossing into New England and finishing in central western New South Wales.
“In total, Banjo went to about 54 different towns and gave more than 90 lectures over nine months,” North said.
Today, Paterson is inseparable from iconic poems such as The Man from Snowy River and Clancy of the Overflow, works that helped define the voice of a new nation. But North believes the lecture tour marked a moment of reinvention.
“Banjo was already famous as a poet,” he said.
“But after working as a war correspondent in South Africa, he tried to reinvent himself as a lecturer and journalist rather than ‘just’ the poet.”
Ironically, contemporary reviews suggest Paterson was not a particularly strong public speaker.
More than a century on, Paterson’s appeal remains undiminished, and North believes humour is the key to his enduring popularity.
“His contemporary Henry Lawson wrote brilliant poetry, but often focused on the harsher, darker side of life,” he said. “Banjo captured the humour in Australian characters. People relate to that. They enjoy it.”
When Paterson visited Ipswich in 1901, Australia was in the first months of Federation and Ipswich was a thriving industrial and cultural centre.
The Life and Rhymes of Banjo Paterson will be performed at Brothers Leagues Club, Raceview from 2-4pm on Saturday, March 14.
Tickets are $20, with bookings available via Eventbrite with the event sponsored by the Alliance of Christian Religious Education.
