The place of children's poetry in the bush poetry movement
Posted: Fri Dec 05, 2014 10:38 am
Lately I've been pushing my collection of poetry for children pretty hard, as some may have noticed.
I don't feel entirely comfortable about this, but it seems to be the way of the world these days. I am also conscious that it is not just 'about me'. The publisher has invested a fair amount of time, energy and money in the book, and they want it to succeed. To some extent, it is probably also fair to say, I am carrying with me the futures of other children's poets, and the genre of children's poetry. If the publisher feels my book has justified its existence, it may open the door for others.
I am also conscious that the whole notion of writing rhyming verse for children sits rather uncomfortably within the broader bush poetry movement. To some extent this puzzles me, and to some extent it doesn't.
Speaking in very simplistic terms, the bush was never a natural environment for either women or children. In the pioneering days, when bush poetry first came to prominence, men vastly outnumbered women in the outback, and it was a very hostile environment for young children.
Paterson wrote a little for children. Lawson scarcely anything at all that I can recall. I don't know of anything at all written for children by Will Ogilvie, Barcroft Boake, John O'Brien, Thomas Spencer, W. T. Goodge, Ed Brady, Charles Souter, Dorothea Mackeller, or Mary Gilmore. No doubt there are some things I have missed.
C. J. Dennis wrote "Book for Kids", of course. It is a great book, but was published in 1921, by which time the bush poetry wave can be said to have largely broken, and it would seem to have been something of an afterthought to his own writing career.
I do know that the Bush Laureate awards received very little poetry that had been written for children, which is why the the category of "Children's Poem of the Year" was dropped.
As I have noted before, there are a number of writers for children active today who write in rhyming verse, but almost none of them would see themselves as bush poets.
Zita Denholm, whose review of my book I have posted here, is a publisher with Triple D Books. One of the great services they have provided is to keep in print a number of Australian children's poets that otherwise would probably not be.
These include the following:
Max Fatchen
Bill Scott
Anne Bell
Colin Thiele
Christobel Mattingley
Again, none of these poets would probably be regarded as bush poets.
ABPA members that do write for children? Carmel Randle and Veronica Teal are two names that come to mind. Carmel died earlier this year, and I don't think Veronica is very active these days.
Greg North, Jim Haynes, Russell Hannah, Geoffrey Graham, David Campbell and Mick Coventry all still occasionally write for children.
Any thoughts, anyone?
I don't feel entirely comfortable about this, but it seems to be the way of the world these days. I am also conscious that it is not just 'about me'. The publisher has invested a fair amount of time, energy and money in the book, and they want it to succeed. To some extent, it is probably also fair to say, I am carrying with me the futures of other children's poets, and the genre of children's poetry. If the publisher feels my book has justified its existence, it may open the door for others.
I am also conscious that the whole notion of writing rhyming verse for children sits rather uncomfortably within the broader bush poetry movement. To some extent this puzzles me, and to some extent it doesn't.
Speaking in very simplistic terms, the bush was never a natural environment for either women or children. In the pioneering days, when bush poetry first came to prominence, men vastly outnumbered women in the outback, and it was a very hostile environment for young children.
Paterson wrote a little for children. Lawson scarcely anything at all that I can recall. I don't know of anything at all written for children by Will Ogilvie, Barcroft Boake, John O'Brien, Thomas Spencer, W. T. Goodge, Ed Brady, Charles Souter, Dorothea Mackeller, or Mary Gilmore. No doubt there are some things I have missed.
C. J. Dennis wrote "Book for Kids", of course. It is a great book, but was published in 1921, by which time the bush poetry wave can be said to have largely broken, and it would seem to have been something of an afterthought to his own writing career.
I do know that the Bush Laureate awards received very little poetry that had been written for children, which is why the the category of "Children's Poem of the Year" was dropped.
As I have noted before, there are a number of writers for children active today who write in rhyming verse, but almost none of them would see themselves as bush poets.
Zita Denholm, whose review of my book I have posted here, is a publisher with Triple D Books. One of the great services they have provided is to keep in print a number of Australian children's poets that otherwise would probably not be.
These include the following:
Max Fatchen
Bill Scott
Anne Bell
Colin Thiele
Christobel Mattingley
Again, none of these poets would probably be regarded as bush poets.
ABPA members that do write for children? Carmel Randle and Veronica Teal are two names that come to mind. Carmel died earlier this year, and I don't think Veronica is very active these days.
Greg North, Jim Haynes, Russell Hannah, Geoffrey Graham, David Campbell and Mick Coventry all still occasionally write for children.
Any thoughts, anyone?