ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

I was reading a copy of Quadrant magazine that was published last month and came across this item. It's a poem by the contemporary Australian poet Rod Usher and it's called Tomato Blues.

It has these lines
" on spec, I address the envelope "

" In my wild erratic fancy
visions come to me of the new settlers "

" And an answer comes directed
in a writing unexpected ...

and verbatim I will quote it:
'The toms you sent us are bonzer
though we don't know who you are "

( he does acknowledge A.B. Paterson with apology )

So the contemporary literati are not all free verse and they do take notice of the old bush poets.

Wan't me to breaK your heart, mate?

Go to Australia Poetry and have a decko at the various prize monies on offer for verse that does not rhyme. Still, we respect other forms of wordcraft, even if they do promote sites like "Nothing Rhymes" and programmes that put blank verse performers into schools as poets. Such is life. We will perservere and protect the heritage until the wheel turns again.

Mal

Of course if you didn't know bush poetry the modern one would lose its meaning... perhaps that applies to more than just this poem?!
Robyn

and with very pointed clearing of the throat...

I wonder which poem will still be quoted (and parodied) in another fifty years? If I thought I'd be around to collect, I'd lay odds.

Yes indeed !! that's the point exactly Robyn. The writer assumes that the reader will understand the reference.

You're probably right Zondrae

I just thought that it was interesting Mal, that even the contemporary poets still act on the belief that Clancy of The Overflow is so well known to any audience that it can be quoted successfully. Yes Mal, the Blake Prize for Poetry held in Sydney has prize money, I think, of $20,000, "bush poetry " is unlikely to get a look in, going on what I have seen of the finalists entries in the past.
We just need some ultra wealthy person with a passion for bush poetry to put up a few grand and..whoopee, away we go !!

My favourite lines from Paterson, are probably not so well known. I think they are the best he ever wrote .......from The Travelling Post Office.


" The roving breezes come and go, the reed beds sweep and sway,
The sleepy river murmers low, and loiters on its way,
It is the land of lots o'time along the Castlereagh "

Stephen Fry was talking with a friend who said that he didn't care for all the staid old fashioned rhyme and metre stuff, he preferred modern free verse, for example, Dylan Thomas's Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night.
The bloke was stunned when Stephen Fry explained how Do Not Go Gently Into That Good Night, is not free verse but actually a poem in iambic pentameter with a set rhyming scheme. Duuuh.

Ha Ha Neville and Marty. So true and amusing.

It's all given me an idea for a new thread......

Favourite lines

watch this space...er..or a new one actually.