When I grew up there,
it was known as The Apple Isle.
My grandfather had acres of orchards.
I don’t know what
the First People called it.
I don’t think anyone ever asked them.
Abel Janszoon Tasman,
Dutch explorer, found it in 1642.
He gave it the name Van Diemen’s Land.
Renamed Tasmania,
it became a British colony —
the cruellest one to convicts and Aborigines.
It was much later
that my grandparents came.
In time my brother and I were born in Tassie.
I left at 15, but I visit.
If you ask where I come from,
I use the joke name (a proud name): Taswegia.
30 Poems in 30 days, 2010: 14
Prompt: A poem about a person or place that has several different names.
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