The Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards presentation ceremony was held today with a stirring speech by guest speaker Lieutenant Harriet Pembroke.
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Lt Pembroke, who was the army’s face for the recruitment of women, told the audience her grandfather, Lieutenant Bushby who fought in the Korean War had given her a book of poems to take with her when she was deployed to the Middle East.
“I did not realise what a lifeline he had given me,” she said. “It was poems from this book that pulled me out of my unproductive melancholia.
“Most of the time I didn’t think there was any beauty around me, but in the world of poetry, life was full of beauty and wonder.”
The presentation included a moving recitation by asylum seeker Maryam Sathat Sobhani, who won first place in the Learning Assistance and Special Education Primary category.
The 12-year-old fled Iran with her parents two years ago.
The presentation included music including past poems as lyrics by The String Contingent and Lucy Wise.
The winners of the Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards 2014 are:
Upper primary: Sarah Jaeger
Lower primary: Jenna Rogers
Assisted learning primary: Maryam Sathat Sobhani
The Sheelah Baxter award for primary schools: Footscray North Primary School
Senior secondary: Jehannah May
Junior secondary: Jemma Gray
Assisted learning secondary: Simione Lua
Schools’ award for secondary schools: Dubbo School of Distance Education.