Bard unveiled – and he’s full of surprises

For years, we have been receiving poetry submissions penned with distinctive handwriting and an idiosyncratic style.

Themes have ranged from childhood memories, often during wartime, to the poet’s father, mother and acquaintances, his Irish heritage and the state of the nation and its treatment of war veterans.

Penned on bright yellow reams of paper, the poems are crammed with memorable, pithy lines like “When I’m alone with all me mates/ and winning all me arguments” and “When the maggots of repentance/ come a-creepin’ through your brain”.

But the poet only ever signed off as Chiylpie from Darwin. Nothing more was known of him or her, apart from what could be gleaned from the verse.

Now, thanks to some digging by The Senior, it can be revealed that the elusive scribe is one Kerrigan (or Kerry) Bowes.

And, as expected, he’s turned out to be quite a character.

Kerrigan, 78, said he went to 11 schools in 10 years following his mother, a singer (“she had 21⁄2 octaves and could shake the window panes when she hit the high notes”), as she looked for work.

Kerrigan’s skills as a poet were hard-won: “I couldn’t speak properly,” he said. “I had to teach myself to write and to speak without stuttering.

“I practised every day and I bought a kids’ primer and learnt my ABCs. I was about 30 then.

“I bought a book on Shakespeare. I’d say ‘You come most carefully upon your hour’ and in the fire brigade they’d think I was nuts.”

Talking about poetry, Kerrigan’s voice grows soft and passionate: “I started writing when I learnt to write because no one would listen to me. But once I put pen to paper, I am king! I feel like a king!

“And I could write. And I would be heard. And I learnt the hard way that words can be more dangerous than swords.”

He said injustice, respect and love are the things that inspire his poems. “And revenge comes into it, too – I’m known for my scorpion-like sting in the tail.”

Poetry comes to him at all hours; sometimes he finds himself writing at two in the morning if some issue is bothering him.

And the bright yellow paper? “I found out it’s called Legal Gold and I get it from the newsagent up the road. It’s now become my comrade in power.”

It comes as little surprise that Kerrigan has lived a varied life.

Asked to describe himself, he said: “I was in the army, I’ve worked in Aboriginal communities, I’ve moved furniture, I’ve been in the fire brigade, I was up in Darwin in the cyclone, I’m half blind, half deaf and half Irish.”

According to Kerrigan, who was a bandsman/stretcher bearer, he and the army were not a good fit: “They let me leave early – I was bit of a Spike Milligan.”

The final straw, he said, involved a bugle and a spectacularly unauthorised rendition of the parade call.

For now, he hopes to keep writing verse for as long as he can. “Who’s that bloke who attacked windmills? Don Quixote? Yes, that’s him. Well, that’s who I am. And I can’t stop. Because while I write, I live.”