CJ Dennis

[Neville Briggs]

That's very good David.

This is just my opinion for what it's worth.

I think it can be misleading to read C.J. Dennis too fast. If you read it too fast it starts to sound like Cockney. I think East-end London speech is related to the Oz accent, but Cockneys talk fast which gives a different expression to their speech. I think that the impression of Cockney is what turns some Oz readers off. I have heard people reciting C.J. Dennis quickly and making it sound like Cockney.

So I think that if you read C.J. Dennis s l o w l y with the old Aussie d r a w l , then the phonetic spelling makes much more sense, and is better appreciated.

That's been my experience.
So if anybody is interested, try an experiment, read out aloud David's post above, fairly quickly, and then read it out loud, drawled slowly ,and I think you will hear the difference that I am trying to explain.

[Irene]

Well written David - enjoyed your poem very much, and even was able to read it!!

Neville - I think you are right! (oops - didn't I say that on my last post???? ) I did what you suggested, and certainly found it sounded better read a little slower.

I think perhaps the average person should listen to CJ's works first - if recited by someone good!! - I am certainly taking a second look at his work, and finding it very different to my original impression.

Marty, you slipped that in while I was writing!!

[David Campbell]

Thanks Neville and Irene...the suggestion to read Dennis slowly is a good one.

For me, the most interesting thing about Dennis is his versatility. He could write "straight", like Lawson and Paterson, but with his use of the vernacular he created a unique style in his tale of the Bloke, Ginger Mick, and Doreen. The Sentimental Bloke caught the public imagination at the time and was a huge publishing success. Then, of course, there were the topical poems he wrote on a daily basis for the Melbourne Herald. Stephen told me that he wrote over 5000 poems, so here was a man who, given the incredibly inventive variations in his metre and rhyme, could turn his hand to almost anything in poetic form.

Cheers
David

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, I agree David. One of Dennis' most effective poetic innovations, I think, was the 'short line'. I've never seen anybody else do it, yet he did it often. It became the key to much of the success of his rhythms, I think, and also the mood of many of his poems. He would, in a sense, set up expectations, then cut across them. That playfulness often paralleled the nature of the story he was telling, and the combined effect could be quite mesmerising. He discusses this in the poem 'A Guide for Poits' in 'Backblock Ballads'.

I know this is a poetry site, but don't forget, too, his prose. He wrote a great deal of prose also as, of course, did Paterson and Lawson and many others. Much of Dennis' prose came in the form of 'letters to the editor' from a fictional bushie, 'Ben Bowyang', while Dennis was at the Herald. Dennis created the Bowyang character, and it was adapted into a comic strip for publication in the Herald, and was continued for many years after his death. I think two or three cartoonists continued the tradition until it eventually petered out. As I recall, 'bowyangs' were devices designed to hold your trouser cuffs above your boots.

Many years ago I came across a remarkable piece of prose that Dennis wrote. When you read it out aloud, it sounded like rhyming verse. Dennis quoted a friend asking him once whether it was prose or poetry, and he replied something to the effect that it was a combination of both. I wish I could lay my hands on it, but I can't for the life of me remember where I saw it. I have a feeling it was on the subject of 'Summer', but I can't be sure.