Bush Poems?

[Bob Pacey]

umm


Quote

"Probably not eligible for a bush poetry competition"


Bob

[Heather]

It relates to David's question about his poem Darken the Night but I didn't want to hijack his poem's thread Bob. Obviously I did not explain myself very well. I'll stop while i'm ahead and go and read my book!

[David Campbell]

I'd like to take up Bob's point about putting judges under pressure. I'd be delighted to be put under pressure of this sort, but, despite lots of discussion here, not much is happening 'out there'. Heather's list of Lawson poems is a telling one. Take The Women of the Town, for example. As indicated here before, I reckon it's one of Lawson’s greatest poems. The Watch on the Kerb is also about prostitution. So Lawson, a century ago, was writing about a major social issue like this…but a serious poem about prostitution in today’s bush poetry world? Can anybody name one?

Similarly for same-sex relationships. My free verse poem in the Liz Huf anthology is a serious piece about a lesbian couple. You might be able to get away with issues like this in bush poetry if they’re referenced in a caricatured or humorous fashion, but serious? No. My Liz Huf short story, based loosely on an actual murder case not far from Tamworth several years ago, is about the horrific circumstances surrounding family violence. But as a subject for bush poetry, even though it took place in “the bush”? Nup.

As Heather says with respect to Darken the Night, it would be “not welcome in most bush competitions”. She also says that most of her poems wouldn't be welcome because the criteria are so limiting, or perhaps that should be because they're too often perceived as being limiting. There are quite a few other issues that fall into the same category of not being considered “appropriate” for bush poetry. A quick look through today’s Age, for example, finds articles on: corporate corruption; sexual abuse of people with a disability; climate change; asylum seekers; uranium exports; religious discrimination; and attacks on Muslims. Apart from climate change (usually in terms of drought), do any of these sorts of issues currently find their way into bush poetry? I look for them in judging, but usually in vain. And yet Lawson clearly didn’t shy away from the harsher aspects of life in his day…read his short story The Selector’s Daughter, for example. So why do we?

Generally speaking, bush poetry today tends to be far more Paterson than Lawson, that is, more romantic than realistic, more The Fire at Ross’s Farm than The Women of the Town. How many other rhyming verse poets are, like Heather, writing poems that we (in competitions or elsewhere) don’t get to see in our strangely sanitised world?

If you think I’m overstating the case, read through the prize-winning poems in the ‘Poetry’ section on the home page. It’s OK to write about war and death, but try counting the number of poems which deal in serious fashion with other controversial headline issues from today’s news, particularly in a city setting. You won’t find many.

David

[Heather]

I only use Lawson as an example because he is the poet I am most familiar with - for no other reason.

Henry's poem Women of the Town must have been fairly risqué at the time - prostitution would not have been something openly spoken about in polite society. He wrote about what he saw around him - wherever he was - in London, the bush or the city. Actually David, I do recall a poet posting a poem about prostitution here a couple of years ago - can't recall the name of the poem but it was very good.

What I was trying to ask was whether a poem like Women of the Town is considered to be a bush poem. Does the "criteria" on our home page that Bob has reminded us about, include such a poem? There's no mention of Australia or Australians and it could be about prostitutes anywhere in the world. If the author wasn't known and it was written today would it be called bush poetry? I doubt it.

Because the author of that poem is well known, it would be allowed to be recited in a "traditional" section of a performance comp. If it were entered as a modern poem in a competition it may not be allowed. I see a contradiction there. Is everything Lawson wrote considered to be "bush" poetry? I don't mean a story based in the bush but as in the criteria Bob talks about.

As poets we should be writing about whatever we observe around us, wherever it is.

I actually prefer the poems Henry wrote that are not based in the bush. There is much more feeling and emotion in some of them. It's a matter of taste I guess.

Heather

[warooa]

Puttanesca poetry

[Bob Pacey]

David said

I'd be delighted to be put under pressure of this sort, but, despite lots of discussion here, not much is happening 'out there'.

Exactly what I was saying David.

Australians and/or the Australian way of life.

This bit covers it all I think, is prostitution a part of our way of life ? is murder a part of our way of life ?

My answer is although it may be an unsavoury part. YES it is ! not a problem my end. Is that to simplistic a view ? I don't think so.

Bob

[David Campbell]

Yep, we’re on the same page, Bob, but don’t expect any quick “resolution”. This is a highly emotional issue, and it requires a tectonic-level shifting of ground for a lot of people. Although many of us on this site might agree on a very flexible interpretation of the ABPA guidelines, we represent only a small section of the bush poetry world. So it probably means banging on about it here, from different points of view, for quite some time yet before substantial change occurs.

If the Liz Huf competition had been for bush poetry, would our two poems have come equal second? Not likely. No problem with your poem, which would have been very welcome (and prize-worthy) in any bush poetry comp, but mine would probably have hit the reject pile pretty quickly. We’ll have some form of resolution when poems with such widely divergent subject-matter are regularly given equal weighting in the broader bush poetry community.

That underlines the question Heather is asking. The Lawson poems she has listed don’t relate to the standard bush poetry ‘markers’ so often used today. There’s no mention of Australia, the bush etc. So are they ‘bush’ poetry? Would The Women of the Town be widely accepted today as bush poetry if Lawson’s name wasn’t attached to it? Like Heather, I doubt it. But it’d be an interesting experiment to run!

Cheers
David

[manfredvijars]

I suggest that if we as writers are too fixated on competitions, we are holding ourselves back.

There are a myriad topics that don't necessarily fall into the 'bush' category yet are worthy, no - dependent on our attention. We poets are well placed with our skill-set to impact, even influence our community with appropriate social comment.

Fundamentally we're writers - without restriction. Henry was.

Just my two-bobs worth.

[Neville Briggs]

You're probably right Manfred about comps.

Writers look for an audience and some recognition. In the bush poetry world or even poetry generally, publishing is almost non existent and the comps are possibly the only avenue for " publishing " that some people get.

My two bobs worth is that the comps need new blood in the judging. Judges who are not bush poets or members of the ABPA, judges who are more interested in the joy of energetic expression than the blue pencil on pedantic peccadilloes. New blood invigorates the gene pool.

[manfredvijars]

A bit of new blood wouldn't hurt, but don't dismiss our current judges. One would be hard pressed to find a better bunch.

Judges judge according to a criteria which is mostly set by competition organisers.
And there are many competitions out there, just need to pick a bunch and choose which one you want to write for ...