Yeoval will come alive over the weekend as the town hosts celebrations of one of Australia’s most famous poets, Banjo Paterson.
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Festivities will commence at the Yeoval Community Hall on Saturday evening – the anniversary of Banjo’s birthday. This will be marked with ‘Banjo’s Birthday Bash’ featuring an Anne Kirkpatrick concert.
Celebrations will continue on Sunday from 8am with a Poet’s Breakfast. Bush poets from Lightening Ridge, Wellington, Parkes and Wombat will recite poems, and welcome audience members to do the same.
A barbecue lunch, the museum, a vintage car show and an Aboriginal art display will be available until around 2pm.
Festival committee member, Alf Cantrell, said the weekend gives people the opportunity to learn and appreciate Australian poetry.
“If you stop for a minute and read some magnificent poetry from sometime like Paterson or Lawson, it’s amazing how they can put words together to form a picture in your mind,” he said.
“Poetry is something that has disappeared a lot from vocabularies and schools over the years and is something that in my day every child could recite numerous Australian poems off by heart.
“Today you’d be lucky to find one, because it’s something children just don’t learn today.”