Dransfield

Dransfield In his brief life Michael Dransfield won the hearts of many in his generation and in the process gained himself unprecedented popularity. His poetry gives an insight into this astonishingly gifted writers imagination and the thoughts he had on a forever changing society with changing values. These poems were often richly imaginative, at times almost gothic and Dransfield himself describes his poems as “a colourful exotic presence”. By the time he died Dransfield was something of a cult hero. His addiction to drugs, in particular heroin, saw many of the alternative life stylers who felt alienated from society looking to Dransfield as a leader of their kind and someone from whom they could gain an identity. Dransfield’s poetry was written to evoke a response from these alternate life stylers and its purpose was to speak out a against a society obsessed with commercialism, the negative aspects of a rapidly changing society, the effects of the Vietnam war on society, the negatives of compulsory conscription and how the alternate way of life he so famously led was fast becoming a way out of dealing with and living with society in its then present state. For this reason his work was loved by many and hence his acquired cult status. For Australia dransfield, life, poetry, drugs, vietnam, society, people, times, one, conscription, change, becoming, alternative, time, government, years, way, war, reality, poet, living, hence, dransfield’s, compulsory, changing, become, australia, about, voice, took, style, something, rodney, reason, poems, poem, out, michael, make, loved, hall, governments, generation, cult, commercialised, chose, been, because, became, young