Margaret Bradstock
An armchair activist, she signs petitions,
distributes leaflets, super-glues
anti-fracking posters to billboards
and bus-shelters. Bumper stickers –“Save
Our Tree-Huggers”, “Protect Our Oceans”
− shout their message from her van.
She conserves water, uses solar power,
recycles, composts, sends almost nothing
to landfill. She’s ordinary, nothing special
just your everyday environmentalist.
At Christmas (and whenever
conscience bites) feel-good donations
go out to charities. She remembers
to give way at pedestrian crossings,
even at roundabouts, to parents
with prams and toddlers,
supports emerging poets, helps
grandchildren write essay drafts.
And when she does,
it’s a bigger hit than Xanax.
Margaret Bradstock has eight published collections of poetry, including The Pomelo Tree (winner of the Wesley Michel Wright Prize) and Barnacle Rock (winner of the Woollahra Festival Award, 2014). Editor of Antipodes (2011) and Caring for Country (2017), Margaret won the Banjo Paterson Poetry Award in 2014, 2015 and 2017. Her latest collection, from Puncher & Wattmann, is Brief Garden (2019).
Old Water Rat Publishing 