Wilkie Davis

The poems of Wilkie Davis reveal the heart of a native born Westerner, whose idea of heaven was a camp fire under a myriad of glittering stars, a stock horse sleeping quietly by, and the night wind crooning softly in the belah trees.

His poems are love poems to the bush that was his home. Where others saw harsh sunlight he saw gold.

Born on the remote Olive Downs station north west of Tibooburra, near the turn of the twentieth century, Wilkie Davis grew up among stockmen who respected the man who could recite bush poetry – it was part of their language.

Henry Lawson, Will Ogilvie, Rudyard Kipling and Dorothea McKellar, became his constant companions and taught him a way of responding to the “wide brown land” that was his home. It was a great source of pride to him that his grandfather W.W. Davis, who helped pioneer the district, was the ‘Baldy Thompson’ featured in Lawson’s writings.

Wilkie was not blind to the hardships found in the West, but he saw his calling to be the bard who celebrated the courage of the men and women who had made their home there.

For more information please contact the Back O' Bourke Information and Exhibition Centre

Kidman Way, Bourke NSW 2840

02 6872 1321