I first visited TMAG in 2018 on a family holiday to Hobart, having previously found inspiration in a couple of mainland Australian paintings for formal poems in the style - or rather, one of the styles - of John Betjeman. As such, I visited TMAG half in search of further inspiration, which struck a few times; one such was in the form of the apparently straightforward Henry Gritten painting Main Road, New Town. It nonetheless proved a foil for raising questions about settlement in 19th-century Australia, and I have attempted to convey this indirectly through the thoughts of the poem's persona.

The sky is big, and flecked with clouds,

some wispy, effervescent shrouds

that play above the distant crowds

of hills and all.
 

The sky is big above the ground

(that hill, in truth, is just a mound)

and everything beneath it browned …

so browned, so small.

The horses go on down the street,

as gentlefolk who claimed a seat

atop the carriage turn and greet

some passers-by.

Some passers-by; I wonder where

they’re heading to, in morning air,

and what they’ll all be doing there –

where to, and why?

Some seem important, some not so,

but each one has a place to go:

suburban lady, country beau,

flat cap, top hat.

How many New Towns have there been?

Did each start out as in this scene?

Each one was named by someone keen

to call it that –

And yet, quite soon, the town is old,

and I would not like being told

That as the plaques have all gone cold,

the road gone brown,

They will rename me ‘Old Town’ – true

though it may be, I am not new –

and one day, when we’ve all passed through,

there’ll be No Town.

Stephen McCarthy is a young writer from Sydney. He won the 2018 Nan Manefield Young Writers’ Award and the Senior Poetry Prize in the Mosman Youth Awards in Literature for his poem, “On the Ellipsis”. He has had works published in the UNSWeetened Literary Journal, including poetry, short stories and non-fiction. His poem "Cabbage-Tree Day Break" was featured on the website of the Society of Classical Poets, while his short story "Hello Llandilo" was published by WestWords in the BAD Western Sydney Crime Writing Anthology for 2023.