Writing bush verse: imagination vs. discipline

[Stephen Whiteside]

I've been thinking a bit about the nature of writing rhyming verse recently, and it strikes me that you are required to apply two different skills that are essentially contradictory simultaneously.

On the one hand, you need to be creative, and encourage a 'looseness' and association of ideas. On the other hand, you also need to be strict - almost mathematical - about the pattern of rhyme, the rhyme itself and the rhythm.

If you allow the creativity too much latitude, the rhyme and rhythm will collapse, but if you are too conscious of the rhyme and rhythm, you will stifle the imaginative aspect of your writing.

I'm probably the last bush poet to realise this, but it struck me as rather profound when I formalised my thinking on it all.

[warooa]

So incredibly true Stephen, and that is where the magic of the great poems comes from, where that balancing act is at the optimum. I'm always saying how very difficult it is to write exceptional bush poetry and the way you've succinctly put it paints that picture perfectly.

Cheeers, Marty

[Stephen Whiteside]

So I'm not just making it up! Thanks, Marty.

[vwalla]

Stephen
Could not agree more
Val W

[Neville Briggs]

I'm glad that you have been thinking about this Stephen. It's a profitable line of enquiry I reckon.

Robert Frost thought about it, he had this to say " Verse in which there is nothing but the beat of the meter furnished by the accents of the polysyllabic words we call doggerel. Verse is not that. Neither is it the sound of sense alone. It is a resultant from those two. "

Are the two skills of metric structure and Fost's sound of sense, contradictory?
I think that there is a tension between them and the skill of the poet is to walk this fine balance of sense with rhythm and metre. It's quite hard to do this creatively. I know that from reading poets who can do it, and realise that I can't.
Does discipline have to be rigid conformity ? Discipline is literally training to obedience,
when we want to be poets don't we seek to learn how to make our creativity work in obedience to our design and patterns.
I'm still trying to figure it out.

I don't think that you are the last bush poet to think of this. I reckon you might be one who has the sensitivity to see something that a lot don't see.

My opinion for what it is worth, is that we can start to get a handle on the issue you have raised if we get away from strict mathematical so-called " rules ", that we accept variation in metre as not being wrong if it is done with creative intent ( hard to judge sometimes ) and also learn that rhyme is not correct or incorrect just varied, and importantly if we can work out how the rhythm of language is not quite the same thing as metre.

So I guess , in short, I am trying to say that I think imagination is not VERSUS discipline, they both work to-gether in poetry and there's a lot of hard slog to achieve that.

Am I an expert or master of the above things. No way. But I am trying to learn

Does this make sense. Hope so, it almost makes sense to me

[Robyn]

Couldn't agree more Stephen. IMO a great poem needs both discipline and imagination.
And Neville, an illustration of your point about a dogmatic adhere to rhyme and rythmn is when a poet puts too much weight on discipline, at the expense of imagination.
The interesting thing is, not everyone will draw the line in the same place. Trying to get the balance right takes skill and judgement, both of which can be honed and refined by reading other poets' work. Ergo, innate talent is necessary but not sufficient...
I think it's actually very difficult to define what makes great poetry. Some great humorous poems also have a playfulness with language that adds to the humour. Is that imagination or just playing with sounds? I just know it works...

[Neville Briggs]

That's right Robyn.