To honour the spirit of the Olympics 2012, 204 poems from around the world, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, have been collected from each of the 204 participating countries by the Scottish Poetry LibraryOlympic Poems

Here are the first nine from Australia and Oceania. Enjoy!

  1. AustraliaThe Mitchells
  2. Cook IslandsTurakina Street
  3. Fiji: Tern
  4. Kirbati: Bonefish
  5. Micronesia: I follow her
  6. Nauru: Rains of Nauru
  7. New Zealand: Nowhere
  8. Papua New Guinea: Tuna
  9. Samoa: Flying-fox

The poems selected are often not by the most notable poet a country has produced. Some of them are funny or light-hearted. Often they are snapshots of lives rather than grand narratives. And some of the choices may be controversial. However, they all give a glimpse of lives in countries spanning the globe. Together these poems depict a world united not only by sport, but by emotions that are universal and need no translator other than the heart.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 8th, 2012 at 11:09 am and is filed under Australasia, cultural diversity, General, other interesting stuff, social practices . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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