Poetry – Azaria Poems

Posted byChantelle GriffinPosted inPoetryTags:,

In 2019 a rare interview from my mother was released via the podcast “A Perfect Storm: the true history of the Chamberlains” throughout several episodes. What made this interview unique was the sincerity, honesty and diligent attention to detail. When I was four or five Sally gave her only other interview after a stranger had published slander to ruin her credibility as a witness. It was at the height of a media frenzy that would be played out like a soap opera and consume the attention of a nation. The interview released in the podcast was done without bias or prejudice, and encompasses some of the raw emotions my family has lived with including sorrow and grief. My mother had no idea about podcasts and this is how I struck up a conversation with the interviewer, John Buck.

Commemoration

After some encouragement, I went around to dad’s place and went through the old slide collection. Dusting off ten slides that were taken at Uluru (Ayers Rock) on 17 August 1980. We headed off from Alice Springs in the morning and arrived around midday. For my parents it was the trip of a lifetime and I was 17 months old. I was small and sickly, and due to be placed in a tent half an hour after Azaria was taken. One moment my parents were having a wonderful evening and the next my mother heard the part cry and saw the scene left in the tent. For years I have carried a personal grief and it has taken a long time to understand that the tragedy was also a nation’s grief. On the fortieth year of remembrance I released the slides that had never been seen and fifty poems.

Published by Chantelle Griffin

Chantelle’s mother remains one of the most famous witnesses in Australian legal history. The first large screen movie the author saw, at the age of nine, had an actress playing her as an infant when she was at Uluru on 17 August 1980 at the same campsite as the Chamberlains. She began publishing poetry later in life with the first release coinciding with the fortieth anniversary of the disappearance of Azaria. While most poems have been released in the volumes for the anthology, more than a thousand were written throughout a twelve year period. Chantelle has a Master of Environmental Planning and enjoys life at half pace with two cats. Her first fantasy book was released too soon, after a near death experience and a second edition was published four years later. She resides in Tasmania and continues to write as a past time in the evening.