ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

We’ve just had a wonderful end to the year with a big family wedding here at our place, which is why I’ve been rather busy lately and not posting. Our younger daughter was married in our “back yard” and people came from near and far (she lives in Amsterdam) for the occasion. All went well and the weather smiled on us, which was a relief given that we had a major and very destructive bushfire not far away on Christmas Day last year. But that’s not what this post is about. There’s a poem below, but an editorial first.

Watching Charlie Pickering’s wrap-up of 2016 on Wednesday night made me realise just how bad a year it’s been in general terms. The refugee situation in Europe has been devastating on so many levels, and Syria is an ongoing horror beyond belief. We’re largely insulated from it here, although Manus Island and Nauru have not exactly enhanced our humanitarian reputation. And looming over all this is the election of Donald Trump in America. The signs suggest that his presidency will be an absolute disaster, and the fallout is already starting to spread across the world, including here. Bush poetry tends not to be very political these days, which is strange given the brilliant example set by C J Dennis (for one). Obviously, not everyone will agree, but I reckon that now is the time to use our verse to fight back against a Trump-like philosophy that pays little attention to honesty, decency or integrity. When “post-truth” is the Oxford Dictionary’s word of the year and a Trump acolyte can say: “There’s no such thing, unfortunately anymore, as facts” then we face a sick, sorry, and very dangerous world. Poetry might only have a tiny voice, but that’s better than complete silence.

So here’s a poem I first posted almost exactly a year ago. It seems even more relevant now.

A Poet’s Voice

© David Campbell 19/12/15

There’s so much in our world today
that needs a poet’s voice,
a quiet word that tries to say
that we must make a choice
between a life that feeds
on fear, or hate, or grief or pain,
and one which takes a path that leads
to signs of hope again.

There’s climate change, which needs a plan,
and poverty world-wide,
disease that shows the hand of man
cannot yet match his pride.
The Middle East is torn apart
by ancient hatreds still,
while drink and drugs lie at the heart
of frailties that kill.

And yet if I should try to write
a verse about these things,
to try to cast a little light
on what such sorrow brings,
so many people seem confused
that I should turn to rhyme,
as if a law has been abused,
some sort of written crime.

“That rhyming stuff is dead and gone,
it’s past its use-by date,
so give it up, don’t waffle on,
it doesn’t resonate!”
And yet, if they take time to sit
and hear a poem through
they’ll often grudgingly admit
they’ve learnt a thing or two.

“All right, not bad, I’ve changed my mind,
that poetry’s okay,
I never thought that I would find
it relevant today.
So maybe I might take a look
at other things you’ve done…
I see you’ve brought along a book,
so why not sell me one?”

And slowly, slowly, over time,
in places here and there,
as people are exposed to rhyme,
they might begin to care,
to see that our poetic voice
is still alive and well,
and offering another choice…
the stories that we tell.

I remember you posting that poem, David - was it really a year ago?? How time flies!

Very thought-provoking indeed. I was having the conversation about the relevance of bush poetry (perhaps all poetry) just recently (again) with another poet. As we've often said, bush poetry is entwined in our culture, yet it is so often seen to be the "poor cousin" in terms of the arts and creative sciences. With a number of poets tackling today's topical issues, you would think there would be opportunity for raising its profile.

Or (as we've pondered before) do people just want to be entertained these days, without having to think too much about it??

Onward to 2017 ...

Cheers
Shelley

A poets 'truth' will always echo through the decades David

I keep partisan politics out of my bush poetry writing... just as I keep "issues " out too.
They are both potentially divisive...and we bush poets are a brother-and-sisterhood I always thought.

For example, not everyone here necessarily hates Donald Trump. Plus he did WIN after all.. a very minor detail perhaps, and a fact clearly still resented bitterly by more than a few whose knives are still out.

"...now is the time to use our verse to fight back against a Trump-like philosophy that pays little attention to honesty, decency or integrity." That presumes that everyone is a Trump-hater. Wrong assumption! .. and what has that got to do with bush poetry. That is American politics! The Australian Political Poets Association? a name change perhaps... not with me as a member, that's for sure.

Poets may have a message, or not.. I don't know. But poets are nothing special in my view. They are no superior and egotistic elite, or high-brows who always carry a Correct Message and shine the light for the ignorant or errant masses. Bush Poets are certainly not Messiahs... or at least not the ones I know of. They are pretty ordinary people almost by definition... maybe even dull, like myself!

There is a big danger in thinking one is absolutely right in politics or "issues" and trying to force that view on others; often based on totally incorrect information fed through the media by those whose job it is to influence people along political rather than truthful lines. As demonstrated in the recent USA election. Care is needed.

Just because it is in the paper or some earnest-looking journo on TV says it is so, and demands almost with menace that "you should be concerned about...".. it is just not so.
However in my view, if one has a crusading bent then joining a political party is the way to go, far more effective... not bush poetry.. and yes who listens to us bush poets anyway??

.. as for "issues"...

God forbid .. I find in my immediate life there is enough to worry about without losing sleep about Syria or whatever is the current in-my-face media fashion to be concerned about this week. No I am not insensitive.. I am in fact over-sensitive. Anyone not in my position, who has no worries, well I envy them and advise them not to go poking about in the troubles of others in the world.. and trying to write "bush" poetry about it.

To me Bush Poetry is about Australian bush things that are beautiful!! Old days, old bush ways and old solid values. Humour. Amateur philosophy occasionally.

It is why I am a member of this Bush Poets Association.. I think? The glorious bush, its people and everything there that is noble.. and at times tough too. Bush Poetry enshrining it all.
Quality rhyming Bush Poetry I believe is an expression of the happiest and best minds... and I suggest that issues and politics are best left to those who can make a living out of fanning up those flames of public indignation and manipulating them. Talk to me about the Australian BUSH, the wonderful characters that inhabit it and its natural beauty. Write about it with style and compassion. Skill with the English language. Entertainment for readers.

Show me poetry that is elegant, precise and expressive about our great country... and never didactic. Yes even stir up some emotions if it is appropriate.. then we are on the same wavelength.
I agree with David though when he says.. "bush poetry tends not to be very political these days". Thankfully!!

I vote to keep it that way!!

In the end people can clearly do as they like, write as they like, I guess it is of no great practical consequence ... but that is just how I happen to see it. For what it is worth of course.

Following on from what Shelley and Maureen have said, poetry is most certainly embedded in our culture and the words written can echo down the years. In that context it's instructive to see those in the bush poetry community who insist that poetry shouldn’t be political, because that argument turns a blind eye to history. C J Dennis, for example, was very political, and you only have to read "The Glugs of Gosh" and scan some of the hundred of poems he wrote for the Melbourne Herald to see evidence of that. Or try “The Martyred Democrat” or “The Bridge Across the Crick”, both of which were published in The Bulletin.

Henry Lawson was also very political, initially influenced by his mother, Louisa, a staunch feminist who fought for women’s voting rights. Lawson was an outspoken advocate for the labour movement, and in his early days he contributed to The Republican, which was a radical newspaper edited and published by Louisa. Later on he contributed political poems to The Boomerang (in Brisbane) and The Worker (in Sydney), much as Dennis did to the Herald in Melbourne. In a reflection of the times, there was an overtly White Australia advocacy in some of his poetry that anticipates the divisive Pauline Hanson/One Nation arguments of today…read “Australia’s Peril”, for example, which has Trump-like echoes of anti-immigration isolationism. Colin Roderick’s biography of Lawson sees him (among other things) as a militant socialist in his early writing who became, as he aged, a conservative racist advocate of Australian nationalism and militarism.

Given that two of our best-known “bush” poets used poetry as a platform for their political views, any suggestion that poetry today shouldn’t be used in similar fashion seems a distinctly head-in-the-sand attitude.

Cheers
David

So many folk have become apathetic David and accept, well that's life, but I appreciate
it when someone genuinely expresses their conern.


Enjoyed the rhyming verses mate.


Merv

Thanks, Merv! I just reckon that if there's something worth saying there's no reason why we can't use poetry to say it...maybe commentary that isn't straight prose has a better chance of hitting home simply because it's different.

Cheers
David

It's certainly difficult for anyone with common compassion and sensibilities to view current world events without feeling disturbed - and thankful that to date, our own way of life has been largely protected.

But however we choose to use our voice (poetic or otherwise) in response to what surrounds us, we can't escape the truth of the wise words of another poet whose voice has echoed through the centuries ... the Englishman John Donne (1572-1631).

No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s
or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know
for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

Wise words indeed, Shelley!

Cheers
David