Community
22 June, 2026
Local poet was popular at Charlton Probus
On taking the floor, Mr Cossar expressed the honour to be asked to share his story and the chance to recite his work in words.
SOME 40 members were privileged to attend the Charlton Probus’ June meeting, which included a special and inspiring speaker.
President Sandra introduced Leon Cossar, a local lad born and raised on the property The Oakes at Yeungroon and is poet and author of a handy little book of poems titled Dust.
On taking the floor, Mr Cossar expressed the honour to be asked to share his story and the chance to recite his work in words.
“The making of poetry - as I have come to understand it - begins with the poet’s ‘sincere attempt to translate something into language that retains both the essence and living presence of the thing he is translating,” he said.
“That something could be an infinite array of things: weather, childhood memories, animals, people, historicalepochs, great battles and heroes or the life of a leaf.
“Dust is my translation of a place called Yeungroon in outback Australia and the farming community that made a way of life there between 1870 and 1970.
“It should however, be read as a historical account.
“While history is also a translation, it is predominantly concerned with accurately recording what happened and when , this largely confirming the historian to facts.”
Mr Cossar said poetry on the other hand works with a different modality of precision.
He interviewed many local men and women of the district by the engagement of these conversations would create an accurate account.
“Poems will carry the story of the place the people into the imagination of the reader in a way no historical rendition could get close to,” Mr Cossar said.
“In other words, the reader will enter the spirit of the place and in turn create their own living translation.
They will see and feel all manner of things that I could never have imagined.
“In this way the living presence of the thing the poet set out to translate in the first place is not made smaller but bigger it is made more alive.
Mr Cossar recited several of his works, which resonated with the very attentive audience.
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