2026 is the 150th Anniversary of Australia's Laureate of the Larrikin – C J Dennis. Dennis is Australia's most popular poet giving us quintessential Australian characters such as The Sentimental Bloke, Doreen and Ginger Mick, publishing The Glugs of Gosh and A Book for Kids; and evoking the sights, sounds and emotions of the Australian bush in his final book “The Singing Garden”.
Dennis has sold over 700,000 books of Australian poetry and published over 4,000 poems, telling our unique Australian story. Dennis’s verse stories captured the humour, romance, and struggles of everyday life and thus his epithet “The Laureate of the Larrikin”.
He portrayed working-class Australians with the dignity and virtues typically attributed to a more genteel class, giving voice to our distinctive national character.