Three Talks on Meher Baba was published as a pamphlet 1969, 1971. Three speeches of eloquent homage to Meher Baba. The first given at the Great Darshan in 1969: more or less how to cope with your Master when you realize He is God. Contains the rather startling report that Baba asked Francis to read […]
This small book was published in 1976 in an edition with fine illustrations from Patricia Saunders. The Poem Everybody’s favourite? Unbelievably long out of print. Written in natural speech rhythms but with some regular beats that will be there if you recite candidly. A dynamic opening with the wind sweeping from the desert interior of […]
The East-West Gathering is a book which Francis Brabazon was asked to write by his Master Meher Baba. It records the large gathering of Baba followers from both East and West which was held to receive darshan from Baba in 1962, in Pune. The book was completed at Meherazad in 1963 and published in Australia […]
Its Genesis The story is told con brio in Robert Rouse’s privately printed book The Making of a Book. Francis and Don Stevens as the two Westerners attending the 1955 Sahavas program in India were both handed by Meher Baba the task of commemorating their experience, Don to write Listen, Humanity and Francis Stay With […]
We generally remember nursery rhymes as harmless, reassuring metrical jingles giving babes entertainment, even though many of them like Jack and Jill, Humpty Dumpty and Ring a Roses have quite dark origins and undertones. Francis takes these reassuring rhymes and, it seems to me, deliberately jars us out of our nostalgia for childhood and the […]
Cantos Of Wandering Introduction Ross Keating tells us that this long poem was first written as a verse play called The Great Wall and given a public reading. It was released in its present form in 1957. I can’t help reproducing a review that Ross quotes, a review from a real Australian literature ‘heavy’ of […]
One of the major collections of Francis’ poetry. Five long poems each an experiment in form. Forming a progression from the Godless world to the vision of the world cleansed and redeemed by the God-Man. Francis wanted these poems to be judged as literature, not as devotional pieces written to a select audience. He wished […]
A Dream Of Wet Pavements Introduction A wild and powerful condemnation of the greed society. The Title Just as objects and colours are distorted and smeared by the wet pavements at night in the city of dreadful night so too the poem gives a lurid and distorted picture to convey the modern corruption. But from […]
Elegy For The Young Poets Introduction How to Read The rhyme pattern makes it flow on from verse to verse, even after full stops which like the short second lines help slow things down, a bit of a contrast with the sharp barked indignations of ‘A Dream of Wet Pavements’. Usual 4 stresses followed […]