Dorothy Hewett

Dorothy Hewett Poems

The dark fires shall burn in many rooms;
will they sometimes miss me with my tangled hair—
still girls in dark uniforms
crouching in winter with their cold hands trembling,
...

I am not alone ... in the beating of my heart
Are the songs of Lumumba, the poems of Pablo Neruda.
‘The Rail Splitters Awake' in my heart each morning,
Brecht's lost children wander through the Polish snow,
...

It rained in Sydney all next day,
And all I could hear was the sound of the baby crying
In the room next door, the key in the lock saying:
Come in, we are transient, and we have taken up our bed already
...

Once I rode with Clancy through the wet hills of Wickepin,
By Kunjin and Corrigin with moonlight on the roofs,
And the iron shone faint and ghostly on the lonely moonlit siding
And the salt earth rang like crystal underneath our flying hoofs.
...

My father's spade
has the hollow sound of regret
Goodbye Dad but he doesn't look up
where the cannas once grew by the drain
...

Here they come the clever ladies
in their detachable Peter Pan collars
their fringes their sober mein
hiding such anger such
...

unfurling our Japanese parasols
out in the desert
we arrange our dolls' tea set
on an upturned butter box
...

Dorothy Hewett Biography

Dorothy Coade Hewett (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002) was an Australian feminist poet, novelist and playwright. She was also a member of the Communist Party of Australia, though she clashed on many occasions with the party's leadership. Hewett was born in Perth and was brought up on a sheep and wheat farm near Wickepin in the Western Australian Wheatbelt. She was initially educated at home and through correspondence courses. From the age of 15 she attended Perth College, which was run by Anglican nuns. Hewett was an atheist, remaining so all her life. In 1944 Hewett began studying English at the University of Western Australia (UWA). It was here that she joined the Communist Party in 1946. Also during her time at UWA she won a major drama competition and a national poetry competition. In 1944 she married communist lawyer Lloyd Davies and had a son who died of leukaemia at age three. The marriage ended in divorce in 1948, following Hewett's departure to Sydney to live with Les Flood, a boilermaker, to who she three sons over nine years. During this period Hewett wrote very little however, the time she spent working in a clothing factory did inform some of her most famous works.)

The Best Poem Of Dorothy Hewett

The Dark Fires

The dark fires shall burn in many rooms;
will they sometimes miss me with my tangled hair—
still girls in dark uniforms
crouching in winter with their cold hands trembling,
still voices echoing as our voices echoed
and the faded frumped-up form
of a mistress teaching French?
Does she remember us or do we pass
only like dreams of dark figures,
some with different hair or deep voices,
or merely countless hats hanging on pegs,
countless columns of moving massed black legs?
Our minds are sprawled on unforbidden lawns,
our voices lie like queer leaves in the clipped grass,
as we believe so we shall pass.

Dorothy Hewett Comments

sucker 04 March 2020

what the is this m8

0 3 Reply
eezy breezy 24 February 2019

yas boi. dfgtyhujikomnbh

1 3 Reply

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