Plays Unperformed works include: 'The Silent People', 'Flood Tide', 'Pavement Oasis', 'Inbye', 'Koorie Song', 'Hammer and Stars' and
Here Comes Kisch, which was performed as a reading at the Australian Playwrights Conference in 1982. Works published in other countries include
Here Under Heaven (1956) and
Strangers in the Land (1961) in Russian as well as
Better a Millstone (1957) and
Strangers in the Land (1957) in Chinese.;
Poetry Brand had four collections of poetry published and had numerous individual poems published in newspapers and periodicals during her career. Her first published poem 'Shy as a Deer' appearing in
The Australasian in 1928 when she was 12 years old. The poem was written for her father and speaks about her "shy as a deer" mother, Violet, who had died some years earlier.
This Night, another early poem was inspired by the second line of Brand's favourite Wordsworth's sonnet: "This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon."
Influences Brand early poetry was strongly influenced by English poets and are somewhat imitative of
William Wordsworth,
John Keats,
Percy Bysshe Shelley,
Wilfred Owen,
Siegfried Sassoon,
Walter de la Mare and
Edna St Vincent Millay. In her early work, she preferred a regular rhyme scheme to free verse although she adopted whichever suited the idea. In the late 1930s, Brand cancelled a planned overseas trip because of the outbreak of World War II. Her poetic focus during this period therefore was on the social and political environment in Australia as well as the unique Australian landscape and seascape. This also became a time for her development as a writer because she met Melbourne
Workers' Educational Association tutor,
William Fearn Wannan, who influenced and taught her. She also became friends with a Brisbane poet,
James Devaney, who introduced her to
John Shaw Neilson, who Brand thought was Australia's finest lyric poet. During the 1960s, Brand began to write verse narration for Margaret Barr's dance dramas. At this period, Brand also collaborated with modern composer,
John Antill. Barr and Antill both insisted on free verse format, which changed Brand's writing styles to some extent.
Poetry collections •
Wheel and Bobbin (1938) Brand's friends voluntarily helped her to publish 500 copies of the collection. The foreword was written by Dame
Mary Gilmore, who pointed out that Brand's poetry was "direct and simple". Contents: Homespun, Hyde Park Fountain, The Miser, Sequence, Sympathy (In Mid Winter), The Fashionable Hat, From A Station Bridge, Ageless, Vigil, Aspiration of An Earth Worm, Wander Through, Dream Garden, Shutters, The Queen's Breakfast, Death, Translation of ODE VII BY Horace, Pround Chime, Easter Hymn, The Primrose Flower, Forgetting, Zinnias, Radio Greeting, Sad Tale of a Musical Dove, The Idle Roam, This Night, My Song, Going up, A Simple Lesson •
Silver Singing (1940) The cover was designed by Albert Collins. "The fact that the fine pen and ink drawing depicted a popular tree suggests my continuing pre-occupation with non-indigenous landscape features." Contents: Promise, Clues, Silver Singing, Man's Destiny, Collins Street, The Civilised, The Blue Gum (Outside My Window), Twilight, Australian Christmas (Or Coming up to Scratch), The White Tree, Outside, Chintz, Panorama, At the Ballet, Eternity, The Idle Roam, The Miser, Zinnias, This Night, My Song, Hyde Park Fountain, Sequence, Going Up, Vigil. •
Lass in Love (1946) The cover was designed by Brand herself. Contents: Lass in love, Young Mother, Sound and Sea, The Trust, Symphony of Man, Christmas Tree, Tomorrow, The Willow, Finale, Soundless, Cacophony, Instrument, All I Know, These Hands, To John (1940), Aconite ( Monk's Hood), Seashore, Sale Ad, Parrots, "Where Are Those Thine Accusers?", White Heels, To a Poet. •
Coloured Sounds (1997) This collection includes "some previously unpublished pieces, as well as others that have appeared in the print media or have been performed in association with stage and television productions". Contents: Three sections, organised by date of composition. 1928-1938: The Idle Roam, Zinnias, This Night, Hyde Park Fountain, My Song, The Miser, Forgetting, Ageless, Aspiration of an Earth Worm, Translation of Ode VII by Horace, Shy as a Deer, To A Fellow Poet. 1938-1946: These Hands, The Willow, Lass in Love, The White Tree, Soundless, All I Know, Cacophony, Instrument, Twilight, Man's Destiny, Panorama, Collins Street, The Blue Gum, Promise, Seashore, Sound and Sea, Parrots, Aconite (Monk's Hood), Sympathy, Silver Singing, Young Mother, The Civilised, Symphony of Man, Australian Christmas, At the Ballet, Eternity, The Trust, Clues, To John (1940), Sale Ad, Christmas Tree, Tomorrow. Since 1946: Span, After Lunch, Snowy!, The Toast of Toorak, On our Blindness, Sonnet for Stream Street, Woolloomooloo, Middle Age, Highway, Ben Hai River, The Student, Halong Bay, Hai Thon, Song of Vietnam, Twenty Summers, Sonnet for a Sunday, Sonnet for Two Cities, How a Sound can Grow, Harbour Journey, Indian Ocean, Bombay Wharf, Therapy, Deep South Deep Freeze, Amarilla.
Short stories and other works • ''The Fairie's Ladder'' (1925) Brand published the short story 'The Fairie's Ladder' in
Artesia on 16 January 1925, when she was 9 years old. •
Daughters of Vietnam (1958) This collection contains short stories and poetry. The short stories in this collection are based on conversations between the author and Vietnamese women from a variety of backgrounds which she had while in North Vietnam. Brand wrote, "my husband [Len Fox] and I talked with women in various parts of North Vietnam - peasants in small cottages on the delta and at the seashore, miners at Hongay-Campha and the people belonging to the various national minorities in the new Thai-Meo autonomous region of the North West." Three of the stories "can more correctly be described as biographies because they describe events almost exactly as they took place, with the exception of the creation of a few minor characters." Other stories have been given a more fictional treatment. Contents: Short Stories: Return to Life, The Little Messenger, Down Dragon, Voice in the Jungle, Once More Flowers Blossom. Poetry: The Sun Rises, Hai Thon, Halong Bay, The Student, Song of Vietnam. •
Twenty Summers - Lyrics for a song recorded by
Gary Shearston •
Enough Blue Sky: the Autobiography of Mona Brand, an Unknown Well-Known Playwright (1995) - Brand's self-published autobiography. ==Later years and death==