Intro to 'Award Winning Bush Verse and Stories 2013'

[David Campbell]

I'm putting this up here in the hope of stimulating more interest in the book...the publisher (Melbourne Books) says the response has been "very quiet". The question I've asked in another thread is: "If a book like this doesn’t sell within the bush poetry community itself, what chance is there of getting it out into the wider public arena?" You can find full details via the Public Noticeboard section on August 4.

INTRODUCTION

When I was in primary school we had a set of books called The Victorian Readers, and we received a new one every year as we progressed through the grades. All manner of worlds opened up to us as we read stories by Mark Twain, Henry Lawson, Mary Grant Bruce, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, E. J. Brady, John Masefield, and many others.

Poetry, meanwhile, was all about metre and rhyme. We read works by a range of poets, from Longfellow, Byron and Wordsworth to Paterson and Lawson. We stood in front of the class and recited lines that still lingered many years later. Perhaps it was Wordsworth’s Daffodils, Longfellow’s The Wreck of the Hesperus, Paterson’s Clancy of the Overflow, or Lawson’s The Ballad of the Drover. And you couldn’t consider yourself Australian unless you were able to quote the famous second verse of Dorothea Mackellar’s My Country.

Today, poetry based on metre and rhyme is often referred to as ‘bush’ poetry. ‘Ah,’ some will say when they hear that term. ‘Bush poetry…rhyming verse about kangaroos, gum trees, shearers, bushrangers and billabongs.’ And I would reply: ‘Don’t show your ignorance!’

Contemporary bush poets certainly do look back to historical themes at times, but they also deal with all manner of issues that affect Australian lives in both rural and urban settings in the present day. Poets write about the effects of drought on outback stations, the movement of disaffected youth to the city, drugs, ageing, politics, current conflicts, climate change, the ravages of diseases like cancer…in fact, about all the topics that dominate the way we live in the twenty-first century. And they do it using the old, familiar forms of rhythm and rhyme.

After all, in holding up a mirror to contemporary society, they are only emulating what their famous predecessors…the likes of Henry Lawson, Banjo Paterson and C. J. Dennis…did in their day. And that’s what this book is all about…with one exception it showcases the work of modern-day writers as they reflect on a variety of issues from the vantage point of twenty-first century insight.

Some of the writing in these pages is purely for entertainment, but much of it has a serious message as the authors search for the words to draw the reader into a deeper understanding of an experience or an emotion. Poetry contributions predominate, so it is worth spending a moment considering the place of poetry in the present day, a time when it is far less popular than it was a century or so ago.

In 1892, three years before he wrote Waltzing Matilda, Banjo Paterson engaged Henry Lawson in the famous Bush Battle in the pages of the Bulletin. These two great poets entertained each other and the general public…in verse. Then, in 1915, C. J. Dennis introduced to the world the quintessential Aussie larrikin, the Bloke, and his girl Doreen, in The Songs of the Sentimental Bloke. Within eighteen months of publication the book had sold 66,000 copies. Modern Australian poets can only dream of sales like that, so it is important for today’s writers to find ways of connecting with new generations of readers.

“What can poetry do?” asked well-known Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe in Poetry and the Future (Vol. 68 Number 4, 2009). And for what might influential figures respect poets? He went on to argue that respect might come from two qualities: from poets’ capacity to notice; and their ability not to pass over the local or the familiar.

That is exactly what today’s bush poets are doing…taking note of what is happening and reflecting the local and familiar in what they write. In doing so they are, as Wallace-Crabbe also contends, being witnesses to the valuable, the beautiful and the humane.

Some argue that true ‘bush’ poetry should only look to the past and our pioneering heritage, but that is not the basis for the choice of material in this book. Instead, for both stories and poems we have used the broader definition applied by the Australian Bush Poets Association, that is, writing which deals with “…Australia, Australians and/or the Australian way of life.” So you will find a poem that pays homage to the Cobb & Co. coaches, and one that highlights the plight of a city office worker who misses his home in the country. There is a story by Henry Lawson (not The Drover’s Wife) about the distress of a struggling family on an isolated bush block, and another about an equally troubled family in a small contemporary country town. There are poems dealing with the horrors of war, both past and present.

One of the great strengths of bush poetry is its ability to be a vehicle for the telling of stories. As Max and Jacqui Merckenschlager wrote in the introduction to the 2012 edition of this book:
“Storytelling is an ancient art. It has evolved as a way to make sense of our experiences, to reinforce social mores, to stimulate debate and encourage new and refreshing ways of thinking, to break down barriers, to discover what makes other people ‘tick’ and, ultimately, to learn more about ourselves and what we feel we need to give and to receive in our own lives.”

In other words, it is a journey of discovery, both for the writer and the reader. And that journey should begin in childhood. As the co-author of a poetry book for pre-school children, I can attest to the fact that very young children love rhythm and rhyme…they respond to it enthusiastically and learn from it. Poetry is a wonderful tool in the development of language, reading and writing. Rhymes and chants help children to see the relationship between oral and written language and assist in developing listening and concentration skills.

So it is a great pity to read regular media reports that not much poetry is taught in today’s schools. In a crowded curriculum it seems to have slipped off the radar entirely or, if covered at all, is dealt with as ‘free’ verse because the challenges posed by metre and rhyme are too daunting. In this context, there is also a tendency to divide poetry into two discrete ‘camps’…with free verse on one side and traditional rhyming verse on the other. This attitude, with many proponents of each expressing complete disdain for the other, is pointless, and only damages the image of poetry as a whole.

We need to value all forms of writing even if we have preferences, for there is always something to learn from the written word, always some new discovery to be made. The various forms of poetry are merely parts of a spectrum, and there is great value in being able to move from one to the other, gaining some benefit from each as we go.

So, as far as poetry is concerned, the pages that follow aim to demonstrate how metre and rhyme can still be used effectively in the telling of stories, whether the subject matter be historical or contemporary. Writers have enthusiastically taken up the challenge of overcoming the claim that regular metre can become mechanical, and the necessity to rhyme can lead to awkwardly-phrased, contrived lines. There are no better examples of success in this area than the five poems that conclude the book, a tribute to the brilliance of the late Graham Fredriksen. Graham was a remarkable wordsmith, and the small sample of his work included here shows how ingenuity and imagination can produce compelling verse that drives its message home as dramatically as any other form of written communication.

Of the other contributions to these pages, apart from the Lawson story and two pieces from 2011 (as indicated), all are first-prize winners from 2012. I would like to thank all contributors, and, in doing so, make special mention of Brenda Joy. Not only is Brenda well represented with her poetry, but her archival work for the ABPA was of invaluable assistance in gathering the necessary information about the award-winners. Thank you, Brenda!

In conclusion, I spoke earlier about a “journey of discovery” and it is my hope that reading this book proves to be exactly that. The writers have done their work, so it is now over to you, the reader, to take the next step. Bon voyage!

© David Campbell, 2013