ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

In the June issue of Writers Voice, the quarterly magazine of the NSW Fellowship of Australian Writers, the Poetry Editor, David Berger, wrote the following:

“A good poem should show something and not tell it. Ballads were fine for earlier cultures, but a modern poem is a reaction to an emotion which is then linguistically encrypted and transmitted through time. When this poem is unpacked, the reader should be able to feel that original emotion: the anger, the fear, the joy.”

I wrote a response in verse, which has just been published in the September issue.

Ye Olde Bush Ballad

© 2011 David Campbell, Vic.

In older cultures ballads were okay,
says David Berger, but he thinks today
a modern poem should be wild and free
reaction to emotion that can be
“linguistically encrypted”, sent through time…
so what, then, of ye metre and ye rhyme?

Are all the balladeers from days now past
consigned to musty books and rudely cast
to history’s destructive, fickle flames,
and memories that die with poets’ names?
Are Banjo, Henry and the great C. J.
abandoned, disregarded, and passé?

Have all the stories that we once enjoyed
just vanished into time and been destroyed?
Are Clancy and The Bloke and Mulga Bill
now dead and gone, the subjects of a skill
that cannot represent this modern age
when we set out our thoughts upon the page?

I’d like to think we’d keep an open mind,
for often, in the old ways, I can find
a story and a style that strike a chord
which leaves me fascinated, far from bored,
rejoicing in a tale and turn of phrase
that set imagination well ablaze.

For modern poets using ballad form,
though not, perhaps, the versifier’s norm,
write lines that, when “unpacked” like some new toy,
reveal a sense of anger, fear and joy.
They deal with current issues that portray
the challenges that face us day by day.

While free verse might leave many satisfied,
those ballads, I assure you, haven’t died.
Thus, Mister Berger, I must disagree…
both old and new are pretty fine by me.
Ignoring one, I think, would be remiss,
and so I’ll keep on writing…just like this.

Well said, David, and well written. It's interesting that David Berger does not give any justification for taking the stance that he does. As such, it reads as much as a fashion statement as anything else. He doesn't say 'his way' is intrinsically superior in any way. It seems to be more a case of 'that's the way we do it these days'. Sounds very much like hem-lines.

Nobody questions the use of rhyming verse if it is sung. Then we call it a song. But somehow, it is unacceptable if is is spoken - or written without music. I've seen song lyrics published as books. They often read like poor bush verse, but because they first appeared as songs, that is acceptable. The same publisher would never touch bush verse, because the public wouldn't buy it. Once again, as I see it, it's just a matter of fashion. (I've said all this before, but it's always nice to have an opportunity to say it again.)

By the way, does anybody know anything about 'New Formalism'? It's supposed to be a new form of poetry that has been challenging free verse in the US for a while. I've assumed it would appear in Australia in about five years, but it's been more than that now, I think, so I can only assume it's taking its time. It's not rhyme and metre as we know it (from the examples I have seen), but it's not free verse, either.

Just a couple of thoughts on your post, David.

Does bush poetry have to be ballads and nothing else?

The piece you have written, I think, is not really a ballad. A verse in rhyming quatrains is not necessarily a ballad.

Mark Strand in The Making of a Poem ( Norton 2000) asks whether the historical moment of the ballad may well be over. Then he says " the ballad comes out of the deep sources of language and storytelling. In recent times new media continue to suggest the early origins and customs of the ballads. Country-and-Western is one, and Rap also is clear, narrative and communal. It does not keep to the old quatrain or the old rhyming scheme. But it's immediacy, music, and spontaneous methods of composition shed real light on the true nature of the ballad. ( since Mark Strand is American, I assume that in his mind, Country and Western means the same as bush poetry )
Just wondered what you thought of that.

Martyboy wrote:I see him to be somewhat of a something that rhymes with Half Back Flanker

I'm afraid Marty. that is what is known as argumentum ad hominem. It's an informal logical fallacy i.e. this person is wrong because he is a buffoon, ratbag, goose, etc . Ad hominem is completely useless in sorting out the merits or otherwise of a debate, he is only wrong if you can demonstrate by reasonable evidence that he is wrong. He is certainly no fool, his statement, right or wrong is well put.
I think his statement about a poem should show and not tell, is fair enough, however, the nature of the ballad is indeed to tell. So that's where, I think, this debate gets at cross-purposes, from both ends.

It's interesting to compare poetry with other art forms. We still appreciate the art of, say, Vincent van Gogh or Michelangelo, but we expect modern artists to paint differently. We still appreciate the music of Mozart and Beethoven, but we expect modern composers to compose differently. In other words, artists are expected to break new ground. Even movies are made very differently to how they were a decade ago. Same with popular songs. The problem for poetry, though, is that we can still understand modern movies and popular songs (well, up to a point, I guess), but nobody (or almost nobody) can understand modern poetry.

There is still a school of realism in art, with many passionate practitioners, and it remains quite popular, but none of these artists expect to be taken terribly seriously by the art world. I suppose we should just accept our fate. But it's frustrating to stand by and watch the free versers trash the brand. Perhaps that's too harsh, but I think that's how many people - too many people - perceive it nowadays.

I'm also not sure that that the literary world today affords Paterson and Lawson the same respect as the art world does Tom Roberts and Frederick McCubbin, which is odd when you think about it. They were all masters of their respective fields in their day.

" Onya " the ol' bush ballad.
Jim.

By the way, David, what exactly is the purpose of the 'encryption', do you know? To me it smacks of elitism and exclusion, which I would have thought is the very antithesis of good writing. Sales figures tend to support this, too.

An Extraction from a previous post.

In the June issue of Writers Voice,
the quarterly magazine of the
NSW Fellowship of Australian Writers,
the Poetry Editor, David Berger, wrote the following:

“A good poem should show something and not tell it.
Ballads were fine for earlier cultures,
but a modern poem is a reaction to an emotion
which is then linguistically encrypted and transmitted through time.
When this poem is unpacked,
the reader should be able to feel that original emotion: the anger, the fear, the joy.”
***

Well, David -
linguistic encrytion is code for making it impossible to understand without a code breaker, then it has to be unpacked.

Blimey, far too much work for we average readers.

To ‘see’ the images.
To ‘feel’ the emotion.
To ‘enjoy’ the easily written, easily understood writers work,
is far superior to having to decode it.


Understandably, linguistic encrytion is vital to an item which is to be a limited publication, then cloistered in the bowls of academia,
rarely if ever to see the light of day.


Writers will earn a much more handsome income, writing to suit a larger, wider, understanding and appreciative audience.
***

Jim Spain – the Rimeriter.
A Writer of Rhyme.
A backward poet who writes inverse.

Very good points, Stephen.


I would argue that Paterson, Lawson, Dennis, etc are still highly regarded; as evidenced by the fact that they are published in at least four recent anthologies, edited by modernist poets and published and marketed by substantial publishing houses.

I think the best response we can make to any challenge of relevance is to work at producing stuff, based on traditional forms, that could be as enduring as the work of the Bulletin bush poets. A big ask in the modern world. But is it impossible ?
I think the key is not attention to how Lawson, Dennis et al structured their works, or even their themes, but how they brought to their work an acute observation of their time and talked about it in just the right words to make their voice a communal expression.

I sort of hope that this Hunter Bush Poets Fest at the end of October will be a pattern for the sort of thing that might crank up the appreciation of the possibilities that can be explored in our bush poetry mob.

Thanks, Stephen. David Berger was probably being deliberately provocative (maybe that's where the 'encryption' reference comes from?), but I couldn't let the issue go unchallenged...particularly as the previous poetry editor had said something similar a year ago. And you're right about respect...that comparison with the art world is a telling one.

Neville: No, I'm not saying that bush poetry has to be a ballad and, given that one of the basic elements of a ballad is that it tells a story, I would have been hard-pressed to fulfil that requirement in what was basically a letter to the editor. This was just a reminder to the readers of the magazine that rhythm and rhyme can still be relevant today. I agree that our challenge is to produce work that can endure, but that requires ready access to a wide audience...something that Paterson, Lawson and Dennis had, but poetry, in any form, doesn't really have today. As has been pointed out in another thread, we need to get our work 'out there', where it can be seen and discussed. That's why I write newspaper articles about it and send poems like the one above to literary magazines. And why Stephen has been writing and promoting poems about the logging in Toolangi.

Cheers
David

I can not see that it is something that we need to stress out about. There are a multitude of opinions out there and the old story about pleaseing some of the people all of the time comes to mind.

We can only defend our cause ( If you could call it that ) whenever the need arises as we have all done and will continue to do as the need arises.

You will always get people of different opinion stirring the pot as I call it from time to time but that is just the nature of the beast.


Bob