Geoff Goodfellow’s poems are time capsules that shed light on the past and add bright colour to a fading era.
Feature image credit: Em-Dash Publishing
For over 40 years, Geoff Goodfellow has published poems that have recounted the life of working people and the working-class condition generally from a perspective of his own lived experiences. Chris Sumner points out in the book’s forward that Goodfellow has been described as the ‘People’s Poet,’ which has been a badge of honour for Goodfellow for many years. In Nostalgic Adelaide: Poems political, social & cultural, he continues this tradition in another set of outstanding poems.
For older generations, these poems will be nostalgic, acting as reminders of local products, South Australian manufacturing (that meant jobs and livelihoods) that are no more and how things were once done, but for younger and future generations these poems are time capsules that shed light on the past and add bright colour to a fading era. To highlight this, in the opening poem ‘The Game’ he writes, ‘I grew up when ice was covered in hessian sacks / & hawked from horse & cart for delivery / door to door.’ In the next poem, ‘As a Child,’ he describes the inner northern suburbs where ‘our washing machine was made by Simpson Pope / at Beverly & Dudley Park … the sheets Mum washed weekly off our bunk beds / carried the Actil brand & were made with Australian / cotton loomed & sewn in a factory/shopfront at Woodville…’ This is a theme he returns to throughout the book.
He also recalls the lost culture of Adelaide, such as in ‘Musical Chairs,’ where at the ‘”Teensville Casual Club” … inside “Adelaide’s King of Rock & Roll” / the inimitable “Barrie McCaskill & the Fabulous Drifters” / rocked the room with their 100 watt amps …’
As now the oldest member of his family, Goodfellow bears a responsibility to tell stories of family members, particularly his father, a topic he has vividly visited before in his previous publications. In poems like ‘Living & Learning,’ he recounts his family’s history, noting his father was a ‘Rat of Tobruk.’ Goodfellow explains that ‘no one comes home from a war / unscathed / & young Johnnie was no exception / his boy’s own adventure became a life- / long nightmare not just for him / but for our entire family …’ Other poems, ‘What Parker Hogan & Dad Taught Me’ and ‘Post War Fantasy,’ are perhaps the strongest in the book.
In other parts of Nostalgic Adelaide, he contrasts modern day with the times of his childhood. In ‘The Game’ he laments the corporatisation of football, while in ‘The Lucky Era’ he recalls that ‘the fabulous fifties / when kids could roam from sun-up to street lights / in relative safety / when life seemed to be safe…’ He knows all of this is in the past, as he summarises in ‘A Changing Landscape’ and ‘Going, Going, Gone.’ In ‘Cedar Woods – Cedar Wouldn’t,’ he writes that ‘we’re all keen to see development / but sometimes heritage has to be taught / we want to see our saw tooth roof / as a symbol of a real working port.’
Goodfellow also looks inwardly at himself and his life, in poems like ‘Finding the Answer,’ ‘Amen,’ and ‘Innocence,’ and his later life in ‘Same Head Different Neck’ and ‘Cartoon Carnival.’ He also looks sharply outward to others as in ‘Watch the Gap’ and ‘I’ll Have My Day.’
Goodfellow’s writing style is described in the biographical note as a ‘journalistic style’ but it’s more than that; in what might be perceived as straightforwardness, there are always signs of the sharp-dressed man with the red winklepickers that writes them.
Goodfellow announces in the last line of the last poem ‘Cartoon Carnival’ in Nostalgic Adelaide, in reference to old Warner Bros cartoons, ‘That’s All Folks,’ but let’s hope he has many more books of poetry yet to be published and that his remarkable literary gifts of 12 books of poetry, two text books, a memoir, and a verse novella continue for many more years to come.
Signed copies of Nostalgic Adelaide: poems political, social & cultural are available from Orchard Books. Personally inscribed copies can be purchased by emailing Geoff Goodfellow directly at [email protected]; these will be mailed anywhere in Australia for $30 inclusive. Goodfellow’s Instagram page will be regularly updated with reading venues where books will be available.
Reviewed by Rob McKinnon
The views expressed in this review belong to the author and not Glam Adelaide, its affiliates, or employees.
Distributed by: Em-Dash Publishing
Released: May 2026
RRP: $25.00
