National Poetry Week article

[David Campbell]

Last week (September 5-11) was National Poetry Week so I wrote an article for the Age (http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/societ ... 1js5r.html) arguing (in a deliberately provocative style) that, overall, poetry doesn’t get anywhere near the public recognition that it did in the days of Dennis, Paterson, and Lawson. Then I looked at a few of the possible reasons why, some of which have already been discussed in various contexts on this website.

In particular I concentrated on one given by poet and critic Ian McFarlane who wrote last year that “poetry today is unread because much of it is unreadable”…and pretty much agreed with him. In The Best Australian Poems 2010 (Black Inc.) there are 110 poets, with 129 poems. Only three of the poems could be called traditional rhyming verse and not one of those three would get much recognition in a bush poetry competition. Most of the poems had been published previously, but the editor clearly didn’t read anything where bush poetry might have appeared. However that’s hardly surprising.

In the June 2010 edition of Writers Voice, the magazine of the NSW Fellowship of Australian Writers, the then poetry editor was taken to task by one of the FAW branches for not publishing any traditional verse. Her response was that her mission was to “…try to reflect the predominant form of poetry written by millions of people worldwide…” Tellingly, she added that she was trying to attract “new and perhaps younger people” by “making sure that the magazine contains modern poetry recognisable as such by educated readers”. Make of that what you will.

It’s a very broad generalisation, but we seem to have two distinct poetry genres…traditional verse and non-traditional verse…and there’s not much crossover. You’re either in one camp or the other. The non-traditional group dominates publications like The Best Australian Poems, and its followers are mainly located in cities. The traditional or bush verse people usually live in country towns and rural areas and self-publish their books. Stephen and I are running (in conjunction with the Henry Lawson Society) a bush poetry workshop here in Melbourne on October 22, and most of the interest expressed so far has come from outside the metropolitan area, including some from country NSW.

The book scene is about to change slightly because Melbourne Books will begin to publish early next year an annual collection of bush verse and bush stories (selected from winning competition entries) edited by well-known poet Max Merckenschlager. That’s both good news and bad news. It’s good because it provides a significant outlet for bush poetry and yarns, but it’s bad in that it further entrenches the divide between the two groups. For the last few years Melbourne Books has produced an anthology that mixed bush verse with all types of short stories. That book is continuing, but it will now combine those short stories with non-traditional verse. So there will be two books, probably with two quite distinct readerships.

And that bothers me because, as I’ve argued elsewhere, each group has much to learn from the other. Manfred has asked whether bush poetry is becoming boring, and it’s an excellent question because that’s a big danger. The great strength of bush verse is that it is not obscure…it actually tells a story. But good bush poetry requires much more than just a story if it is to remain interesting. It needs to borrow something from the non-traditional area, which is awash with metaphor and simile. But it doesn’t want to take too much, because non-traditional verse often disappears into a boggy swamp of impenetrable imagery. Somewhere in between is a happy medium.

There are glimmers of light. Stephen has had success writing poems publicising C. J. Dennis and the logging in Toolangi, and has been interviewed by the ABC as a result. I was interviewed about the Bronze Swagman by the ABC in Queensland, and that interview was published along with the poem on their website. Part of the audio broadcast then made its way to the ABC radio news here in Melbourne. That, in turn, was picked up by The Senior newspaper which conducted another interview, resulting in a good article in the September issue. (http://www.thesenior.com.au/news.asp?pu ... cleID=2607) Following on from that there has been contact from a number of people who want to use the poem in one way or another. It’s fascinating to watch the ripples spread.

But now that Poetry Week’s over…what happened? Were there any special poetry events held in your area to mark the occasion?

I was talking to a senior English teacher at a large local school and she didn’t know it was Poetry Week. I visited four bookshops and only one had a reasonable selection of poetry books. Two had less than a dozen, with three or four Australian poets represented. And the fourth didn’t carry any poetry books. Why? “Because nobody buys them.”

I attended two poetry events, one (about Henry Lawson) as an audience member and one as guest poet. There were about 15-20 people at each, hardly anyone under the age of 50. Remember that this is in the suburbs of a big city, with both events advertised widely through local libraries. (Then I read about 300 turning up to a poets’ breakfast in Camooweal!)

Anyhow, perhaps naively, I’m going to continue trying to bridge the divide. I’ll take bush verse into non-traditional areas, as I did last Friday night by presenting ‘Wasteland’ and ‘The Wisdom of a Child’ (among others) to a suburban writing group. And I’ll use prose and free verse in bush poetry workshops as a springboard to discussing metre and rhyme. It’d be great to see poetry considerably more front and centre in terms of general public recognition, and more attention to rhythm and rhyme might just be the way to get there.

As I wrote in the article: “Good poetry can be a still, small voice in a complex world, a reminder that someone has seen into the very heart of an emotion or experience and translated it into words that, even if only for an instant, make us pause and think. Surely that moment is worth preserving.”

Cheers
David

[Zondrae]

G'day David,

It puzzles me (too) that the supposedly learned members of our society look down their noses at 'Bush' Poets. I wonder where and when the divide began and even more importantly ... why? If we look at any other area of development (machinery, technology, medicine) we see that new ideas usually replace the old - but this is because the 'new idea' is better than the old. With poetry, in my mind, there is not one that is 'better' than the other, they are just different. Some (not all) modern poetry is too obscure to understand and it makes me think just what was the writer 'on' when they wrote the piece.

To answer your question. No, I did not know it was poetry week. In fact the only time I have heard of poetry week was about four years ago when one of our local councils but on an event featuring Carol Heuchan and Jim Haynes. There were eight people in attendance.

[Vic Jefferies]

Good On You David. Excellent article and well said.
I have long held the same opinion as yourself regarding the lack of popularity of poetry and I thoroughly agree with the idea that "poetry is destroying itself with pretentious, incomprehensible verbiage."
I also think that a great many modern Australian poets write to impress a small number of peers and their poetry is little else but egocentric baffling nonsense.
You can't make people (the public) like something and sad to say there is little if anything to like with what our modern free verse poets present.
Lawson, Paterson, Kendall and co presented poetry that the people understood, enjoyed and admired hence the longevity of their work.
There have been some who have come close to bridging the gap: Bruce Dawe; Kenneth Slessor, Judith Wright and Rosemary Dobson spring to mind, but in the main our contemporary free verse poets are eminently forgettable as is their work.
Free verse poetry books don't sell and (free verse) poetry is not popular because the people don't like what is being offered to them. As simple as that!
The sooner the pretentious literati appreciate that fact and stop trying to blame the public for their lack of "taste" or understanding the sooner we will see a resurgence in the art.
I would qualify the foregoing with the statement that there are many free verse poems that I do appreciate but they are all far removed from what is offered up as poetry today.

Vic Jefferies

[Neville Briggs]

Interesting article David.

Just a couple of items I have come across. I bought a copy of the Puncher and Wattmann anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard ( modern poet ).
This anthology was published in 2009. It contains 320 poems. John Leonard starts at the front with modernist poems and works through it in reverse chronological order to the earliest Australian poems; Aborigine tribal poems. Along the way he includes all sorts of styles of verse and represents just about every well known modernist poet and bush poet that you could think of.

For Poetry Week, the ABC did a program on their Radio National program; Poetica. This program was about John Shaw Neilson. Although not a bush balladist, John Shaw Neilson was born and raised in the rural Australia, was the son of a shearer, had little education and worked with his father on farm fencing etc. Neilson's poems include many bush themes and are in traditional metric form with rhymes. They are different from the humerous, heroic or nostalgic narratives. More mannered and poetically stylish perhaps, but still traditional verse.
You can listen to the program on the Radio National/Poetica website.

I mention these to show that there are some areas where " traditional" and modernism do overlap quite well. And there are well established Australian modernist poets such as Geoff Page, Jamie Grant, John Leonard and Les Murray, who foster through their publishing, a mixture of both modernist and traditional poetic forms.

[Heather]

I read your article with interest David.

A good poem to me is one that takes my breath away, captures me, draws me in, holds my attention, makes me ask, or cry or laugh; regardless of the form. I'm still discovering and enjoying the journey!

You'd be proud of me; I bought four (secondhand) poetry books this past week, plus two biographies. (I don't eat for the rest of the week!)

Heather

[Vic Jefferies]

Heather wrote:

"A good poem to me is one that takes my breath away, captures me, draws me in, holds my attention, makes me ask, or cry or laugh; regardless of the form."

The only thing I'd add to that is, it is also a poem I want to (read) hear again!

Vic

[Heather]

Over and over Vic!

I have a couple of favourite poems, that, no matter how many times I read them, they take my breath away and make my pulse race. (Wish I had a man like that!)

Heather

[David Campbell]

Matt: Many thanks, and well said.

Zondrae: Unfortunately, Poetry Week seemed to sink without trace. You're right, they're simply different forms of poetry, but it seems that quite a few people consider traditional verse to be out-of-date and not worth considering. Pity. But eight people for Carol and Jim? Not good.

Vic: Wise words...I'm with you all the way. And you're right about wanting to go back to a good poem.

Neville: I agree, there are some good broad-brush anthologies around, although I don't know the Leonard one. Must check it out. But if you look at Meanjin, Overland, or Island, which are three of the main literary journals regularly publishing poetry, there's very little that might be called traditional verse. Thank you for the reference to Poetica.

Heather: Hope you find the books worthwhile! Poetry's a great journey...there's always something new and interesting to find (unlike men?).

Cheers
David

[Stephen Whiteside]

I had an entirely flippant thought in the car this morning. Then I thought, "Hey, that's not such a bad idea!"

We should all go on strike!

It could be a great publicity stunt - "National Poets' Strike!"

There'd be all the usual jokes. "Why would anybody notice?" "I thought they already were on strike!" "They should have done this years ago!" etc. etc., but the point would be that it would be a talking point - possibly, anyway.

Of course, if the strike achieved as much publicity as National Poetry Week then we'd know we were REALLY in trouble!

[Zondrae]

One Problem with this Stephen,

It would be like telling a child not to play with a certain toy. How could we 'not write'. Who would make sure we conformed to the strike - and who among us would be the first to write a funny poem about "when the poets went on strike"? (I can feel one coming on as we speak)