The Australian Landscape.

[Zondrae]

Yep Irene and everone.

I will confess I had only three years of high school (that was minimum in my generation) however, to my inner feelings I am still convinced 'if it don't rhyme it ain't real poetry'. It seems to me that it takes far more skill, time and patience to write a good 'rhyme and metre' poem than to simply throw some words down, in random lines, and call it a poem.

I'll have had a go at free verse but I can barely restrain myself to 'not rhyme'. As Glenny often says - 'It gives me hives.' Having said that, David Cambell (in his workshop) asked if we could tell him why he might have placed the words in the lines that he had written. (We were looking at some non-rhyming verse of his) I repied that I thought it may be for impact. He said I was right. He went on to explain that in free verse, the placement of the lines, or rather those particular words or phrases, are just as importent as the words themselves.

In my uneducated ignorance, I may give it a go again. My group has as it's monthly topic 'Sharing Everything'. I might try a free verse for that. If I manage to do it, I'll post it. But I will put it in the 'off topic' or somewhere other than Member's Poetry.

[Neville Briggs]

I think the best thing that our little gang of bush poets can do is forget about.... .....( rhymes with tree nurse ) and explore all the possibilities of metre and the variations that can be made with rhyming schemes.

There are a lot more possibilties of the traditional structures than what I have seen attempted amongst our mates here. I suspect that the reason why there is so much bad .... .....out there is that some people try to plunge straight into the informal stuff without gaining a good grounding in the formal stuff. Same in the art world, there are those who go straight into " abstract " art without learning how to draw or compose or understand colour theory to a high standard.

I would suggest Zondrae that you try a sonnet, or a sapphic ode or rhyme royal, ottava rima, villanelle, dialogue, rondel, .etc etc etc before turning to .... .....You said that in your uneducated ignorance you would attempt .... ..... I fear that you will not achieve anything worthwhile with that approach.


p.s. our mate Bill Williams is an exception, he does his in his way and he is very good at it, he has an instinctive feel for the informal style.



Hope this sounds like I meant it to be. Hope no one is offended, I'll quickly repent if that is so.

[David Campbell]

Ah, Neville, Neville…back to naughty corner with you. I can’t let you get away with this. Why discourage Zondrae if she wants to have a go at free verse? She is, after all, an accomplished and successful bush poet, so she’s hardly (to use your words) trying “to plunge straight into the informal stuff without gaining a good grounding in the formal stuff”. Maybe, to you, a “good grounding” includes those things you’ve listed, but I wouldn’t recognise an ottava rima or a sapphic ode (was she the daughter in Ab Fab?) if it jumped up in front of me wearing a kilt and stiletto heels.

The worst thing that bush poets can do is dismiss free verse outright because, unfortunately, the committed free verse enthusiasts do exactly the same to bush poetry…and the gulf between the two genres only widens. Each can benefit from some understanding of the other.

I’ve just finished judging an open competition (200 poems) that accepted any form of poetry. Free verse poems were in the majority by far, and, yes, there were some appalling pieces of rubbish….matched by some equally terrible examples of traditional rhyming poetry. Free verse is out there and it’s popular. Experience tells me that kids in school, if they write any poetry at all, are far more likely to have a go at free verse than bush verse. It’s a reality we have to deal with, and pretending it’s not there, or that it’s all nonsense, doesn’t help the bush poetry scene at all.

I’d argue that if we want the younger generation to become involved in traditional forms of poetry when they prefer free verse, then we have to meet them on their ground, understand where they’re coming from, and develop their interest in rhyme and regular metre. In the NFF workshop to which Zondrae refers I presented exactly the same scenario in three forms…as prose, as free verse, and as bush verse…and (although we only had time to scratch the surface) began to explore some of the ways in which each form tried to achieve an effect. Free verse uses the placement of words, the varying length of lines, even the physical shape of the poem, to influence the reader…in other words, it can be quite a visual medium. And, as such, it may be well suited to what Zondrae wants to express.

I don't post free verse on this site because that's not what it's about, but I enjoy good examples of both forms of poetry. Each has much to offer, and there’s always a learning process in seeing what other poets are doing.

So go for it, Zondrae! I reckon you will achieve something worthwhile, and I’ll be very interested to see the result.

David

[David J Delaney]

G'day all, hope you don't mind me 'chipping in'. David, well said mate.

I who after being 'kept down' twice at school (when I was there) was 15 when I attended grade 8 at high school, I stayed for 3 months and left to join the workforce, so believe me, I bet you all know more about the grammar & punctuation side of writing than I do/will.

Most of my life (including when I started writing poetry) I believed Aussie bush verse was the 'be all end all' of poetry & will always be my 1st love of poetry, but, over the last 3 years I have enjoyed trying & learning other forms & styles including sonnets, free verse, traditional rhyme, Haiku & Tanka, there are over 50 different forms of which most of these have their own 'off-shoot' styles.

This might upset some but I have now come to the conclusion (& this is my personal view) that one can't be a 'true' poet until one appreciates (not necessarily like) the work & structure that goes into the different forms of poetry. So good on anyone who is willing to have a go at something different.

BTW, my avatar shows me accepting my 1st place over all certificate for my free verse poem, this particular competition accepted all forms of poetry.

[Maureen K Clifford]

Irene!! Me tongue in cheek? I am devastated to think that you thought that of my detailed explanation of the artistic interpretation of two bikes almost flying united, with one obviously viagra challenged and the other perhaps with a headache and feeling a bit flat

[Maureen K Clifford]

Good on you the two Dave's - you have it in a nutshell - how can we appreciate beauty if we cannot see - and beauty comes in many forms. Totally agree that a lot of grey nurse is absolute crap that seems to have no intelligible meaning or even in some cases a beginning or end - but there is some beautiful sensitive work out there, written by people who are every bit the word-smiths that we consider ourselves to be.

Just as an aside as I have heard it said that free verse sites don't like our poetry appearing on their sites. My poem Pete and Billy won the POTW award on what is predominantly a free verse site and it is not the first of my Australian Bush format poems to do so or others that I have noted from time to time. So really that argument doesn't hold water.

Like Dave D I too spread my wings on this other site trying out lots of different types of poetry and would hate to think that my free verse is considered as having less merit than my bush poetry.

Cheers

Maureen