While there is a range of Australian war poetry, much of the poetry associated with Anzac Day is not Australian. Laurence Binyon, from whose poem, For the fallen, the Ode is taken, was English; John McCrae, author of In Flanders fields, was Canadian; William Butler Yeats, author of An Irish airman foresees his death, was Irish. Other great British war poets who served include Siegfried Sassoon, Rupert Brooke (who died en route to Gallipoli) and Wilfred Owen. 

Examples of Australian war poetry include The grief and glory of Gallipoli: Anzac poetry, an article by A. G. Stephens that quotes extracts of contemporary poetry published in the Brisbane Courier, 27 April 1929. Stephens was editor of a collection of poetry, Anzac memorial, first published in 1916. 

Australian poet Kenneth Slessor was a war correspondent during the Second World War and spent time with Australian troops in England, Greece, the Middle East and New Guinea. His famous war poem Beach burial depicts the burial of anonymous sailors lost at sea during the Gulf of Aden operations in the Second World War.

In the 2002 Sydney Morning Herald article, ‘They also served – and wrote’, author Jill Hamilton discusses her research on Anzac poetry, commenting particularly about Banjo Paterson’s service as a war correspondent in the Boer War and then as an officer in a Remount Unit looking after the horses of the Light Horse in the First World War. Paterson wrote several poems with a war theme, including We’re all Australians now. 

Other examples of Australian war poetry include:

• Anzac Day (1916) by Wolla Meranda (Gertrude Poyitt), Victoria
• The toast (1916) by C. H. Souter, born in Scotland, but lived in NSW and South Australia
• The farmer remembers the Somme (1920) by Vance Palmer, Victoria and Queensland
• Anzac Cove (January 1916) by Leon Gellert, South Australia
• A sonnet for Anzac Day by Alf Wood who served with the AIF during the Second World War and lived in NSW.

The Anzac girls: the extraordinary story of our World War I nurses, Peter Rees (Allen & Unwin, 2016). By the end of the Great War, 45 Australian and New Zealand nurses had died on overseas service and over 200 had been decorated.

Not for glory: a century of service by medical women to the Australian Army and its allies, Susan Neuhaus and Sharon Mascall-Dare (Boolarong Press, 2014). From the trenches of the Western Front to the ricefields and jungles of Southeast Asia, Australian women have served as doctors and medical specialists from the First World War until the present day.

Our mob served: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories of war and defending Australia, Alison Cadzow and Mary Anne Jebb (eds) (Aboriginal Studies Press, 2019). This edited volume presents the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander wartime and defence service, told through the oral histories and family images of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. It shares stories of war, defence service and the impact on individuals, families and communities, sometimes for the first time. 

For love of country: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service personnel from South Australia since Federation, Ian Smith (Provost Research & Writing Services, 2022). This book seeks to record the names and brief biographical details of every Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander man and woman with strong connections to South Australia who has served the nation in peace and war. 

Pride in defence: the Australian military and LGBTI service since 1945, Noah Riseman and Shirleen Robinson (Melbourne University Press, 2020). Pride in defence features accounts of secret romances, police surveillance and discharges from service by LGBTI members who served their country in the face of systemic prejudice. 

The forgotten: the Chinese Labour Corps and the Chinese Anzacs in the Great War, Will Davies (Wilkinson Publishing, 2020). This book tells the stories of the Chinese settlers who volunteered to fight for Australia and worked under the British and French on the Western Front during the First World War in the Chinese Labour Corps. See also, Chinese Anzacs by Jo Clyne, Richard Smith and Ian Hodges (Department of Veterans’ Affairs, 2015) and Chinese Anzacs : Australians of Chinese descent in the defence forces 1885–1919 by Alastair Kennedy (2013).

Bravo zulu: honours and awards to Australian naval people, volume 1: 1900–1974, Ian Pfenningwerth (Echo Books, 2016). This book tells the story of the Colonial Naval Forces, the Commonwealth Naval Forces and the Royal Australian Navy, including the honours and awards received by Australian naval personnel from the Australian Government and Allied governments.

‘Symposium: commemoration in Australia: a memory orgy?’, Joan Beaumont, Australian Journal of Political Science 50, no. 3 (September 2015): 536–544. This article questions whether Australians of culturally diverse backgrounds engaged with the centenary commemorations of the landing at Gallipoli, and how strongly they identify with the Anzac legend as the dominant narrative of Australian nationalism.

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