Graham Fredriksen of Kilcoy, Queensland developed a deep love of poetry — and lyrics — in his early school years but never seriously wrote verse until in his late thirties when he joined the North Pine Bush Poets, a founding member in 1996.
His great-grandfather, Peter, sailed as a lone teenager from his homeland, Denmark, to
Queensland in 1871, changing his name en route to escape a past shrouded in obscureness,
Vikings and arcadians, and, thus, became the first Fredriksen. He found employment on "Kilcoy" station as carpenter, shepherd, and later head stockman, before taking up land of his
own account under the Closer Settlement Act in 1884. The property where Graham grew up, "The Ten-mile", is part of Peter's original selection and he has spent most of his life there
apart from a few of his younger years away working in the West. Graham now runs this in
conjunction with a large, remote mountain property, "Bobby Lawlor" station, which he
bought, some two hours' ride to the northwest, running a thousand head of beef cattle.
With his pioneering family background, it is not surprising that Graham is most identified with poetry benchmarked in history and the deep "sense of place" which permeates his work. More a writer than performer, Graham won the title of this year's (2008) Australian Bush Poetry Champion Writer with The Only War We Had. However, he has already had several notable successes and has notched up an unbeaten tally of three Bronze Swagmans,
Australia's highest written bush verse award, from only having entered that award five times: Battle of St. Quentin Canal in 1998; Repossession in 2002; and Ballad of Creamy
Eclipse in 2006 — the 1998 and 2006 winners both being written around family history. And it is in this accord, not only with parochial history but with Australian and even worldwide history, that he sees his role in literature primarily as a folklorist: that is, setting such account — or the mythology surrounding it — down for posterity.
Because of his rural commitments, demand as an accredited written judge, teaching
occasional advanced and elementary classes in construction of metric verse, and night work
as a newspaper proofreader, he enters only a couple of competitions a year but has had many
other awarded poems nonetheless. These include winning the Camooweal Drovers Reunion
Bronze Spur four times, three times the North Pine Camp Oven, and his second book, Paradise Revisited, won Australian Champion Book of 2001. He also recorded his famous
Lighthorse poem, the chronicled Ballad of Bill the Bastard when it was selected for inclusion in Sony Music's Australian Bush Poets Awards 2001 CD, the first compilation
anthology (various artists) of audio bush verse. And January, 2004 saw him receive the
Australia Day Cultural Achievement Award for his "contribution to literature".
Graham's writing is often notably distinguishable in that he generally writes in a
classicist style, rather than the seven foot couplets that are too overly common in modern
bush verse. His use of often intricate rhymes and sometimes unique metres keep his work
refreshingly original. And, among other forms of versifying, he also writes colonial style folk
songs, some of which have been put to music and recorded.
Graham Fredriksen's poem Riding with My Children
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