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The Magpies is one of the most well-known poems, depicting the everlasting and unchanging Magpie call (nature) as life happens (passage of time). It was written in only six stanzas by New Zealand poet, printer, publisher, satirist, sailor and boxer Denis Glover (1912-1980). And here’s the most famous, benign line that seems so simple and yet time withstanding:
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“And Quardle oodle ardle wardle doodle/The magpies said,”
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The Australian Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) is a black and white chesty bird native to Australia and New Guinea. Famous for their vocalisations that mimic the environment, Jasmine was targeted three consecutive times and was ‘swooped’ on her head while walking past a street in Zetland, NSW. When she recorded this from her mother’s balcony in Sydney, there was surely a commotion, magpies were congregating from one tree then to another. What a loud and busy affair it was!
The Magpies is read by Jasmine Low as a tribute to the nation, Australia, one of the luckiest countries in the world, her second home. She is neither native to the other land she calls home, Malaysia, but that is still her Motherland. The land where her mother and her mother’s mother were born, bred and lived. They were the Nanyang Chinese who immigrated at the turn of the 20th century in search of a new home. As a fourth generation Malaysian Chinese now living in Australia, IDENTITY has been a lifelong quest. No land welcomes her home except in the quiet of her heart. Even there, appears a conflict of duality where an all-serving filial piety native meets a braver Mulan-like idealistic artist. Who wins? Not her but the Magpie will keep its calling true.
Read the full poem: https://www.dpmms.cam.ac.uk/~tf/poem10.html
Listen to a Paul Kelly version of this as a song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-Xja7YEhWw
About the Listen by Heart Podcast
You have been listening to Jasmine Low’s Audio Journey experience, presenting Listen by Heart: Voices of the Women of the South China Sea.
Subscribe to the podcast on your preferred platform and if you’d like to encourage us on, find out how you can support the production. Thank you.
Our purpose: Listen by Heart Podcast is an audio project that sets out to record and archive stories from women of the South China Sea, an area of much interest lately. As we document and record all of these stories, we will also be digitising and creating an online presence for women of Southeast Asian heritage and honouring the women who came before them.
Our Mission: Listen By Heart Podcast aims to serve as the Sentinels of the South China Sea, keeping our region at peace.
Production Credits
An open-source project created, narrated and produced by Jasmine H. Low (jasminelow.com).
An AsiaFitnessToday.com Podcast Production.
Supported by GoInternationalGroup.com.
Website by WebPROjx.com.
#ListenbyHeart | https://listenbyheart.webprojx.com
Would you have a tale to share or know somebody who does? Do you identify as a woman with heritage from the nations encircling the contentious South China Seas? We’d love to hear from you…
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