My Life as an (Australian Sheep Farmer) Irish-Australian Poet

Abstract

In my rural community, there has been a great dearth of support for my academic and creative pursuits, yet I love the country lifestyle and want to continue living in it. I achieved my PhD in 2020 with a prosimetric reconstruction of the female journey in Irish mythology and, while labouring on the research and writing, I was living a parallel life as a merino sheep farmer. In this paper, I present an autoethnographic reflection of the particular challenges faced by those of us who take on creative and academic pursuits in rural communities. It is tough in the bush, with limited resources for mental and physical health, let alone study and creativity. Those of us who undertake such pursuits seemingly unrelated to our ‘real’ lives have to be markedly resilient to survive. As a feminist, a poet, and a sheep farmer, I was able to find ways not only to survive but to flourish in the cracks and crevices in-between the rural/city divide, and the creative/academic divide. This reflection suggests there are significant socio-cultural gains to be made by according greater value to what rural creative scholars can offer that is very different to the mainstream. It is written as a hybrid combination of poetry, academic analysis, and creative prose. The style demonstrates the use of poetry as a creative research tool to both discover insights into the personal creative journey and convey these to an academic audience. A version of this article was presented at the CSU Creative Practices Crevice Communities symposium in 2022.