Ode to the enduring potential of poetry

[Terry]

I hope you're right Vic.

If it happens, it will be interesting so see what type of poems are needed to to catch to-day imaginations - we've changed a lot and are still changing.

Cheers Terry

[warooa]

I really enjoy the way you push the boundaries of our craft!

I think that's the essence of the whole issue, Robyn. We need to push the boundaries.

If we do what we do, and do it well, people will stand up and take notice. David has produced a perfect example of that. We need to embrace our heritage but at the same stage forget about our past - if that makes sense. I'm convinced that as sure as shizen we will live and die as those before us but rhyming poetry will live on.


Marty

[manfredvijars]

Have you read anything written in the last twenty years to rival the works of these poets or poets such as Keats, Kipling or WB Yeats? I doubt it!

I beg to (respectfully) differ Vic. All to often we overlook what's under our noses, Ron Stevens, Max Merkenschlager, our own David Campbell and Glenny Palmer and of course Graham Fredriksen (whose book should be out this year) ..... amongst others ...

[Maureen K Clifford]

Maybe the solution should start with the appointment of a Poet Laureate by our Govt. Wouldn't that be something to aspire to? We don't seem to have one currently although we have had them in the past.

America seems to have had almost a surplus of them over the years - they seem to be appointed on a regular basis - which is a top idea and shares it around a bit. Plus America and England seem to actually value their Poet Laureate's. If the general public do not know the works of their own poets how can we expect them to value poets or poetry?

[Vic Jefferies]

Maureen sadly I have to say that you are exactly wrong.
This is how we have landed in the impossible position we find ourselves in.
The government will be guided by the literati and we will end up with a poet laureate that writes free verse no one understands and which further widens the gulf between the people and poetry.
What we needed is a poet of such ability the people understand and acclaim, not somebody appointed by the government on spurious advice.

[David Campbell]

Thanks, Stephen. You could be right about the Laureates, but it's hard to know.

It's still a work in progress, Marty. I won a free verse award with a similarly-themed poem a few years ago, and I've always wondered how it would go as rhyming verse. And if (or where) it would find an audience.

That's where Robyn's question is relevant (Hi Robyn. Glad you enjoyed the poem. We finally made it home today, to be greeted by 40 degree heat!). I probably wouldn't enter it in the bush section of a competition. It comes down to expectations, and those only change slowly, over time. Maybe in another five or ten years? Glenny commented in another thread about one of her poems being seen as "quaint" because it rhymed....presumably because rhyme was considered out-of-date by the person concerned. That bothers me. It's probably a fairly common perception, and that's why pushing the boundaries is important. So that people aren't surprised (or disappointed or angry) when they go to a bush poetry gig and hear rhyming verse used to make some sort of serious comment about a current issue. Sure, the humorous pieces put bums on seats (and I believe that's all the grey nomads in the caravan parks up north want to hear), but there's still a place for alternative material. It's great to be up on stage and have an audience laughing fit to bust, but it can be equally satisfying to have them sit and listen in silence...and then for someone to come up afterwards and say: "Thank you. That really hit home with me. I have a family member/friend who went through that. I'm going to give a copy of the poem to them."

Many thanks for putting me in that company, Manfred. I guess all literature is the product of its time, and history is only made through the rear-view mirror. Poetry of any sort is competing with a hell of a lot of other things at the moment. If it's not as popular as it once was, or if it's seen as "quaint", then we have to do something about that. Humour is an obvious avenue to increased popularity, but challenging people to think about what's going on around them can help to dislodge the "quaint" tag. Dennis did that in spades, often using humour (The Glugs of Gosh, for example, or in his Herald pieces). Greg North's Golden Gumleaf poem "Frackin' Fricker" is a very funny, biting commentary on coal seam gas mining. As I said earlier, it's all about changing expectations and perceptions...one step at a time.

Cheers
David

[keats]

Thanks Vic, but politics and Bush Poetry? Enough said.

Neil

[Terry]

Instead of trying change Bush poetry as it is today, Perhaps it time for someone to get real brave and start a new association aimed at those who wish to really push the boundaries of rhyming poetry and see what happens. At least it will save the usual long drawn out disagreements that arise every time the talk of change takes place. You could give it a new name; that might hopefully help it attract more attention.
It wouldn’t interest me, but I’m sure there are others it might appeal to.
Some might say this would only splinter what we have; but why not belong to both?

Just a thought

Terry

[Neville Briggs]

There is a man who knows it all,
who's got it all worked out.
He's able to discern what's what;
of that he has no doubt.
He's sure the stuff of learned books
is false and foolish rot.
And even though he's never read
a word therein, that's not
a problem for this man; in his opinion.

Now, other people's language he
has judged as gibberish.
It's obvious that when they speak
their tongues are devilish.
The common adjectives he speaks
are mostly impolite.
For him the rules of grammar are
profoundly recondite.
He speaks with eloquence; in his opinion.

And foreign food is one more thing
this man finds just no good.
He knows about its awful taste
he always has withstood.
He's never had a mouthful touch
his palate; so refined.
If foreign food was suitable
to relish as one dined,
this man would surely know; in his opinion.

There is a man who rails against
the current government.
They're way off course, they've got it wrong,
he'll brook no argument.
He had no knowledge of the mode
of party policies.
he's never studied Parliament
'cause sport is all he sees.
But he could run the State; in his opinion.

There is a man who knows it all,
who's got it all worked out.
He's able to discern what's what,
of that he has no doubt.
The bothersome entanglement
of proof or evidence
is just an obstacle to his
perceptive common sense.
This man, well he just knows; in his opinion.

[Vic Jefferies]

Neville, that is the best poem you ever wrote...in my opinion.