ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Here are two different styles of Bush writing


Please Sir can you help

The old battler Bill’s Question

Some of you people may have noticed
That my diction and speech that’s spoken
Has improved? as time has moved along.

For I have been around the district
Preaching, AA programs with distinction .
With a derelict! named Sammy Jones.

Sixty, dirty and uncouth with out a doubt
He’d pick his nose, an belch an fart
Making very impolite sexual gestured

As I tried to tell the people! Of the evils of his ways.
But he died, and he was buried, just last week
So please sir could you be like Sammy Jones

And an answer came directed from writing a unexpected
From our Editor Frank Daniel

Seeing that you're insisting that I take old Sammy's place
I imagine that I could be a multiple disgrace
and pick my broken bloody nose and scratch my dirty ar**e
and be your prime example of a bloke without no class.

I'd cough and spit and belch and fart and have a runny nose
I'd dribble down my whiskered chin, spill sauce on my clothes
and like my old Aunt Martha, keep the audience in line
raising my middle finger giving them the good-luck sign

Franks Aunt Martha must have had a lot of rellies - I see that sign often. I am always polite and blow them a kiss, toot back and wave. Mum taught me that good manners cost nothing and the smile you give to people is valuable for some people have none of their own to share.

Thank you for sharing and enlightening us all to your good works with AA Bill - proud to call you a mate

william williams wrote:been around the district
Preaching, AA programs with distinction .

You'd make a good preacher Bill.


The difference I see is that the first version is in the passive voice and the second in the active voice. I prefer the second which is more direct and lively.