Melissa Parke MP on Seamus Heaney and Roger McGough

Melissa Parke is the Federal Member for Fremantle. Melissa has campaigned on the need for education and health reform, and for integrity and accountability in Government. She has also made it clear that one of her ambitions is to see Fremantle recognised as a leader in urban sustainability, and in climate-change awareness and action.

Here’s what Melissa had to say about her favourite poems:

‘I find it a little difficult to tell you my favourite poem, poetry book or poet because, like music, poetry speaks to different aspects and moments of our lives. It rather depends on what is happening at any given time in your day or your life as to whether you will appreciate more a love poem or a poem about loss or about the night stars or a sunburst wheat field. But I will nevertheless nominate two poems that have particular meaning for me.

Firstly, Seamus Heaney's poem ‘From the Republic of Conscience’,
which is a strong motivation in my role as federal representative for
Fremantle (view the poem at http://www.thewitness.org/archive/march2002/poem.html)

As a committed vegetarian, I nominate Roger McGough's poem ‘There was
a knock on the door. It was the meat’ as a humorous and confronting poem that forces the reader's attention to the fact that the meat was recently a living creature.’