Australian Poetry—Where To?

[TomChap]

G'Day all. It's been a while since I looked in on this group. For those who remember me, I'm back. For those who don't know me, I'm Tom Chapman from Tamworth.

I've been looking into modern poetry lately in an effort to expand my horizons, and I must confess that I still can't see the sense in a lot of it. (I'm finding that I'm not alone in that.)
But it has given birth to the following:


Australian Poetry—Where to?


Some poets today do not get to your heart,
At least that's the way that I see it;
For many a line shows a fragmented art;
You might not agree—so be it.

Now where are the bards, the tellers of tales,
The blokes who once told of the bush?
And others, like Dennis, whose verse still exhales
The atmosphere of Melbourne's push?

They told of the shearers, sundowners, and thieves,
Bushrangers, and dark back street thugs.
But some of the stuff that is written now leaves
You thinking they might be on drugs.

For Paterson's anapest takes you along
On a riotous, rollicking ride.
With its rhythm and rhyme it can sound like a song
And there's others like Lawson beside.

Some poets have told me it's hard to make rhyme
So they opt for the quite modern schools;
Where to fit what's been written, for some of the time,
They invent new suitable rules.

Now I've read some textbooks and still find it hard;
Is it poetry or is it prose?
It might just be me—I'm from the old guard
And have to accept it I s'pose.

What the new poets write must mean something to them
Or surely they wouldn't have written
An obviously personal carpe diem
That leaves one confusedly smitten.

I'll admit that not all of the old stuff is good,
And not all of the recent is bad.
But wisely presented, new poetry could
More encourage the folk it once had.

For Banjo still sings to the man in the street,
O'Brien also has his friends.
But when poems appeal to the narrow elite,
The link to the common man ends.

Have poets lost touch with the vast hoi polloi;
The people who'd hear them recite,
And buy up their booklets to later enjoy
By a fire on a cold winter's night?

Well there are some around who can still spin a yarn,
Keep a hundred or so folk enthralled;
Tell of modern day life, not an old farmyard barn;
With humour each detail's recalled.

There's blokes like Gliori, and Major and North
And Johnston, the Rhymer from Ryde,
And others like Heuchan, to show the girls' worth
To prove that the old style's not died.

So where are we headed with verse or not verse?
Any sign of the New Formalism?
One hopes we moving to better, not worse;
And for poets, a new altruism.

© June 2011 Tom Chapman

[Terry]

G/day Tom,
A few people have been asking the same questions for awhile now.
I think one point you made was spot on when you said, that regardless
of the genre, not all of it's good and not all of it's bad.
I don't think that any of the various forms of poetry are as big a threat to
each other, as are the many forms of entertainment and distractions now
available to the general public.
As a prospector I still spend a lot of time in the bush so most (not all) of my
poems are about the remote areas of Australia.
I can't speak for anyone else but I just treat writing poetry as a pleasurable
pastime.

Cheers Terry

[Maureen K Clifford]

G'day Tom - good to see you here and that is an impressive start but I see you have been doing it for a while so are no novice at it..I enjoyed your poem and nothing like cutting to the chase....we have had lots of discussion on site re this subject and glad to see you are one of the open ended variety - who also dabbles in other forms of poetry as do I but my love is bush poetry and as you so rightly point out not all that is old is good and not all that is recent is bad.

Looking forward to reading much more from you Mate

Cheers

Maureen

[Heather]

Welcome Tom. I enjoyed the poem too. I'm only new at writing poetry (less than 2 years) and am still learning a lot and enjoying every minute.

Some of the poets here write of modern or unusual topics - look at Stephen Whiteside and Bob Pacey - both taking bush poetry to the kids and making it fun and interesting.

Look forward to reading more Tom.

Heather

[Neville Briggs]

I think you'll find Tom that it's not poetry that's changed so much. It's the world that has changed.
The world of Lawson and Paterson, of the shearers and sundowners and the Melbourne push, they are all gone. Bruce Simpson has told us how the packhorse drovers have been replaced by trucks.

Contemporary poets are trying to speak in to-days language.

As far as style, if you look around you , even in the " contemporary " poets you will find a fair bit of the old rhyming metric construction coming back. They just don't sound like Lawson and Paterson, why should they ? what's the point of that. Lawson and Paterson spoke to their generation in it's language, we have to learn to speak to our generation in it's language if we want to communicate realistically.
If we keep doing poems as if poetry died after 1940 then I think our bush poetry will die out.
That doesn't mean we can't keep Paterson and Lawson and C J Dennis etc among our collection. The art of Rembrandt and da Vinci is still great art even though it belongs to another age.

So the point I am trying to make is, it's not the style or construction of the poem that makes it speak to effectively, it's the language.

I think that you are doing a very useful thing looking into modern poetry. It's not easy, you have to work at it ( and a lot of it is pretentious rubbish, even modern poetry experts such as Stephen Fry say that ) I think we can learn a lot from contemporary poets, and we still don't need to imitate their style in bush poetry.

[Vic Jefferies]

G'day Tom,

Loved the poem and agree with your sentiments regarding modern poetry.
We have discussed this issue at length over the last few years on this site and there are varying points of view, however I think it is beyond question that modern poetry has absolutely failed to connect with the general public. In fact I think modern free verse poets have almost killed the public's interest in the art.
I have no doubt that if Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson were still alive and writing they would be at least as popular today as they were back then.
They wouldn't necessarily be writing about the bush or on bush themes but their ability, talent and skill would ensure their popularity.
It wasn't necessarily their topics that made them popular but their shear ability to speak to the common people in language they understood and appreciated that made them so admired. More importantly they said things through their poetry that people wanted to hear and which meant something.
While we have produced some good poets since their demise we haven't actually been able to replace their outstanding artistry and wonderful writing abilities.
I believe that one day we will see another Henry or Banjo emerge and when he/she does our form of poetry will enjoy a great resurgence in popularity and more importantly Australia will be a very much better place.

Vic

[Maureen K Clifford]

Hey Vic is it working on a sheep property that gives one shear ability If so I might have a bit Then again maybe you were indicating the off with the old and in with new context...Hmmmmm have to think on that for a bit but then wouldn't you write that down as shearability??? Most of our sheep had shearability but some were right little sods.

[Vic Jefferies]

Awe Shucks! I can only try!

[Maureen K Clifford]

Vic - you put SHEAR ability instead of presumably sheer ability in your response - I was having a dig at you because I thought you might wan't to edit it...I know you know how to spell.. that is a no brainer - you must have been distracted
A BIT WOOLLY BRAINED perhaps

[Vic Jefferies]

Maureen I know that I used the wrong shear but do you know that you wrote:
Sweat on her brow, her lips were dry, she go and have another try.

Thought I used the wrong word but forgot to correct it.