Understanding Required - Blackened Billy

[Mal McLean]

I’m reluctant to do this for fear of creating any controversy but if I can’t turn to my peers for advice then we are all wasting our time.

I spent a few hours dissecting Catherine Clarke’s winning Blackened Billy poem “A Bushman’s last Farewell”.

Now, I am not critical of the poem, the poet or the judge. In fact I think it is a wonderful poem. At times, however, I struggled to understand the rhythm on paper but it seemed to work out well when the poem was recited. I’m sure this is just me and my well known failures in achieving consistent written rhythm but would value your opinions. I was also a bit concerned at the use of the word “myst’ry” to achieve a suitable rhythm outcome in the sixth stanza and wonder if this is acceptable. I always thought it was a no-no so have tried to avoid that type of usage but if it is ok then I will not be worried about using that tool in the future. I was also wondering about the rhyming of “run” and “unison” in the seventh stanza. To me, that is not a perfect rhyme or even a half rhyme. Similarly, I also wonder about the last rhyming couplet in the poem where “unsurpassed” is said to rhyme with “sleep at last”. I am happy to have my concerns corrected and then I might also be able to change the way I approach rhyming as well.

Again, no criticism is intended of poet poem or judge. I seek to learn by understanding how others have achieved success.

Kind Regards

Mal the Oldfart

[Bellobazza]

G'day Mal...
I don't think that, as aspiring poets, we should fret too much about imperfect, or what you refer to as 'half-rhymes'. In the case in point, "run" / "unison" is what I would call a 'near rhyme' and, in my opinion, "unsurpassed" / "sleep at last" is a very good example of that. The question of 'true rhyme' or 'near rhyme' in this case is entirely a matter of the reader's own pronunciation. You will hear as many people say "unsurpast" as you will "unsurpassed" with the slightest difference of inflection in the way they express the last letter.

The real issue, in my view, is this: Does the choice of word help or hinder the SENSE and CADENCE (modulation) of the poem? If the rhyme is contrived, it will jar with the reader, in which case it is far better to have a 'near rhyme' that is consistent with the what is being said and HOW it is being said, than to have a 'perfect rhyme' (if there is such a thing) that is not.

I looked for an example from the masters and it was very easy to find the following from the opening lines of Henry Kendall's "Song of the Shingle-splitters"...

"In dark wild woods, where the lone owl broods
and the dingoes nightly yell..."

One could imagine that another poet, unsatisfied with the internal rhyme "woods / broods" might re-cast the line thus...

"In dark wild dells, where the lone owl dwells"

Where might that have led Kendall, I wonder? The thing is that "broods" is not only an 'eye-rhyme' that looks like "woods" on paper (a technique much more acceptable in Kendall's era), it is also a 'near rhyme' when spoken and, most importantly, it carries the SENSE of the piece forward setting up what follows.

Our language is a rich and varied one, but there are limitations to the number of words that 'near rhyme' let alone rhyme perfectly. Each poet then must either limit his rhymes to the hackneyed standards...moon; June; swoon...or be prepared to test the limits of vocabulary.

As far as written comps go, my attitude is that luck's a lottery. There are any amount of factors that can and do affect the judges' decisions. I certainly don't envy them their task. Competition though does tend to make you work that little bit harder to make the work the best that you can do. If I think my best needs to include some 'apostraphisin' for ME to be happy, then so be it. As Mz Clarke's poem demonstrates, even the gods differ on occasions.

Cheers, Will

[Leonie]

I noticed the abbreviation as well, and I guess the bottom line and answer to your question of "is this acceptable?" is that obviously it was acceptable in this case because she won.

I have no idea why it is ok in some instances and not in others, trying to grasp what the judges might be after just makes my head hurt. Like Will says I think sometimes it's a lottery. If a poem is so good that it just 'grabs the judges' and causes them to overlook slight imperfections then it probably deserves to win anyway.

For myself -before I joined this forum and read about all the 'rules' of bush poetry I just wrote poetry for the sake of writing it. Now I find I am trying so hard to get it 'right' that it loses something in the process. And now to add to that confusion some of the things that I thought (like you) were definite no's no's are turning out not to be that at all. Confusion reigns. Maybe we are getting a little too much information. You know what they say about a little knowledge.

[keats]

Maybe we are getting a little too much information. You know what they say about a little knowledge.

Ah ha!!! Leonie has nailed it in one! Those who try to turn Bush Poetry into a science are doing more harm than good. Some of the best poems I have ever had the pleasure of reading were written by people who lacked an education for various reasons. Their spelling may not have won any awards but everything was there and understandable to make a poem that could drive it's way into your heart. Others I have read that try to follow every so called minute rule we are fed, turn out bland, over sterilized and pretty well bloody boring.

The Blackened Billy has always been a competition of note but has never quite had to follow the strict format of the Bronze Swagman for example. I have not read the winning poem from this year, but will make a point of doing so. But I fully agree with what Leonie said, so once more

"Maybe we are getting a little too much information. You know what they say about a little knowledge."

[Vic Jefferies]

Here I believe is the nub of our problem. I believe very,very few of us write poetry. Most of us write verse which I believe is better termed folk poetry or folk verse. That is we write of things that are of interest to us and our peers in hopefully good rhyme and correctly measured meter in words that we and our readers/audiences readily understand. That for the most part was what Banjo and the boys did though the best of them were able to write verse that bordered on being true poetry.
I remember well my chagrin when someone criticised my first attempts at writing and how I, like so many I have heard since, declared that I wrote the way I wanted to and I had no need of understanding any of the so called rules of poetry.
I also remember how it eventually became clear to me that what I was doing was writing pure doggerel and that to improve I had to do some hard yards, change my thinking and be prepared to learn.
Having said that I am still constantly amazed at some of the ideas circulating about what is good writing and what is not. Many of these ideas seem to me to be based on personal opinions rather than sound knowledge.
If we don't strive for the best our art will die under a torrent of similar doggerel. Unfortunately, despite the efforts of the ABPA many of the competitions both written and performance are judged by people who are sometimes completely unqualified to act in that role and we see some truly regrettable decisions.
However, I do believe that we are in danger of becoming too pedantic and thereby possibly confused about what is acceptable and what is not.
I very rarely enter competitions and just try to write as well as I am able to and for the pure enjoyment of writing and performing.

[Bellobazza]

Ah, but then, there is much more satisfaction in bending the 'rules' if you know what the 'rules' are!

quote: "Maybe we are getting a little too much information. You know what they say about a little knowledge ... Those who try to turn Bush Poetry into a science are doing more harm than good. Some of the best poems I have ever had the pleasure of reading were written by people who lacked an education for various reasons."

I know I can get quite long-winded when discussing the technical aspects of poetry and can come off sounding like a grammar teacher at times. Just for the record though, I left school with a fairly pedestrian Intermediate Certificate at 15, and then spent the next 50 years working as a lowly tradie. I'm still learning but! And I'm just as happy to learn something valuable from Joe Blow or Professor McGillicuddy. Just as the lack of a 'good' education doesn't preclude someone from writing 'good' poetry, nor does it preclude them from trying to improve their education.
Any observations I make here are only that...my current understanding of a craft in which I'm a mere beginner. And I find discussions on the forum prompted by questions such as Mal's are an invaluable opportunity to exchange tips, techniques and insights that help me with that learning process and, hopefully, improve my own feeble efforts. This is the General Poetry Discussion page after all.

Cheers, Will.

Sorry Vic, you pipped me at the post (so to speak). This was not intended as a response to your post.

[keats]

Yeah, see how hard it is to nail what constitutes a great poem in the eyes of a judge? And as Vic mentioned, a 'qualified' judge? Both the last comments are pretty hard to argue with, yet differ when you read the underlying message. I agree with both, and it's not a matter of sitting on the fence. And when I poorly worded my line about those who I have met who did not have a high degree of education, I was being complimentary, as life experience as an inspiration is invaluable and usually radiates from the words.

But I suppose we get back to the old question of who judges the judges?

[Mal McLean]

Mmmmmmm.

A lot to think about.

[manfredvijars]

This year's Blackened Billy winning piece is on the "Poetry" page of the ABPA web-site ...

[Vic Jefferies]

Just read the poem and sadly I have to say I think it confirms what I said previously about totally unqualified people acting as judges in poetry competitions.
If this was the best poem entered in that competition we are all in trouble.