First Fleet

by Michael Crowley

Between 1787 and 1850, over 160,000 convicts were sent from Britain to penal colonies in Australia. First Fleet tells the story of the first eleven ships that sailed from Portsmouth on a 15,000 mile voyage to establish the first British penal settlement at Sydney Cove. Drawing on the surviving journals from some of those on board the prison convoy, these poems inhabit the imaginary voices of convicts, crew, marines, and Aboriginal people to give intimate voice - lyrical, poignant and unsentimental - to the poverty they left behind and the terrible ""starvation years"" they faced when they reached Australia.

90 pages, Paperback

Published October 17, 2017

Reviews

[Natalie Lonsdale · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was not at all what I had expected. The author has written a collection of poems from the viewpoint of some chosen convicts, marines and Aboriginal's caught up in the extraordinary circumstances of the First Fleet's arrival at Botany Bay. I find it fascinating that an Englishman has put such time, thought and research into modern Australia's beginnings.

Highlights for me:

'...Now the Reverend in alone with Barrett's eyes.
Faith drips off his face, soaks his Bible...'

First up the Fig Tree: Surgeon White at the execution of Thomas Barrett, February 1788, p. 21

'...My people lie under crabs
faces like pitted stones,
they crawl to camp for fish and fire,
cry when the English whip their own...'

Landed - Arabanoo of the Gayimai People fails to escape captivity - March 1789, p.34