"Mapooram" is a 1960 poem by Australian poet Roland Robinson.
It was first published in The Bulletin on 17 February 1960, and later in the poet's collections and other Australian poetry anthologies. The poem carries an explanatory line that reads: "(Related by Fred Biggs, Ngeamba tribe, Lake Carjellingo)."
Critical reception In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page noted "Doctrinaire readers, on both sides of the racial divide, might see Robinson's 're-write' of Biggs' story as an 'appropriation', as yet another European rip-off. This was certainly a risk Robinson took, and was aware of, but ultimately the poem is its own justification...Fortunately, the poem turns out to be great story, subtly retold by Robinson in a style entirely appropriate to the purpose, a language that is at once his own and, in a different way, Fred Biggs' too."60 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2009, p90. Accessed: 4 March 2026.
Further publications
After the poem's initial publication in The Bulletin it was reprinted as follows:
Altjeringa and Other Aboriginal Poems by Roland Robinson, Reed, 1970 Aboriginal Myths and Legends by Roland Robinson and T. G. H. Strehlow, Sun Books, 1977 The Jindyworobaks edited by Brian Elliott, University of Queensland Press, 1979 My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985 The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse edited by Les Murray, Oxford University Press, 1986 Anthology of Australian Religious Poetry edited by Les Murray, Collins Dove, 1986 Selected Poems by Roland Robinson, Angus and Robertson, 1989 The Nearest the White Man Gets : Aboriginal Narratives and Poems of New South Wales by Roland Robinson, Hale and Iremonger, 1989 Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann, Heinemann, 1991 Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 1994 Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998 80 Great Poems from Chaucer to Now edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2006 60 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2009 The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009 Would I Might Find My Country and Other Poems by Roland Robinson, Picaro Press, 2010 Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011
See also 1960 in poetry 1960 in literature 1960 in Australian literature
References