Understanding Required - Blackened Billy

[william williams]

I knows me pidgin but gimmy Aussie propa speech any day Flammin text language

Bill W

[Mal McLean]

It's all right Manfred....I'm still here

I didn't know the difference between ROFL and MILF til one of my boys pulled me aside and said "Dad....I used to think you didn't know what you were talking about and now I know it". Unfortunately, I had used the really offensive one in several emails. My family has forgiven me.......

Mal the Oldfart

[Glenny Palmer]

G'day Mal,
Excellent question. Excellent response....albeit a 'War & Peace' if one has been away & is required to read from wo to go. (Phew!!) There goes finishing my bathroom today....

I am often a 'Judge'. I also periodically enter written comps. As a judge, the length of a poem has no particular impact upon me. It's the impact of the poem that matters, equally with the structure, & it can be quite difficult to create impact in shorter works. When one such poem emerges it is a delight to the soul, (mine & Neville's). I was recently honoured to be awarded first in the NSW written Championships. My poem was 28 lines long. ('Certificates To Mount'...see Member's Poetry). As brevity is not my strong point, I was doubly chuffed. Perhaps some organisers are just looking for longer works for some obscure reason? BTW, I entered that poem in The Blackened Billy, where, it seems, it was utterly underwhelming. So there you go. There's the normal human difference in perception that you will always get, simply because judges are people. I applaud Keats' observation..'If you judge often enough, you learn peoples distinctive styles..............think about it. That's why the same judges can't be used all the time.' (Personally, I may be thick, but I can't pick those styles.) No sour grapes here...but it has always been my view that at least 2 judges should be engaged for written comps to achieve the broadest opinion. And that, unless you have an outstanding judge like Bill Gleeson (the previous B/Billy judge), the same individual doing the judging year after year, will reduce the 'colour' of the results....& ultimately erode the particular comp's credibility & status. And unfortunately, this reverberates throughout our entire craft.

Much has been debated here on 'the pronunciation' of words.While in performance, words like 'mystery', 'history' etc can be smoothly abbreviated, it is, IMO, critical that they not be abbreviated for written works. My reasoning is that award winners are supposedly wordsmiths; craftsmen of the word. To be acknowledged as such, surely we must be required to find a better word than an abbreviated one? (sctatch scratch) Would you give an award to a woodworking craftsman who chucked a flat head screw into the leg of an antique reproduction to keep it upright? I'm bloody sure I would not....especially when I work sooo hard at my dowelling.

Entering competitions is an excellent way to hone your skills....if...the judges are sufficiently dedicated to offer productive critique. I owe much to The Blackened Billy, & in particular Bill Gleeson, whose notes on my fledgling works of 1994 pointed out that I needed to learn my craft. They were a month or more in arriving & I had decided that I musn't be much good at this & had resolved to give it away. His notes, + the 95% he gave me set me on my way. (That gives you some idea, Mal, just how high the standard used to be, to win this prestigious award. At 95% I wasn't even in the top 10.)

I congratulate Ms Clarke for her win, & wish her every (undoubted) future success. If only to ease the itching of my hives, I implore her to avoid using abbreviations. (You never know my dear...I just might be the judge in a future comp you enter, & I really don't wish to have to bin an otherwise lyrical & heartfelt work, such as you produce.) I'm off to don my hard hat now.....

A lively & most informative thread. Thank you Mal.

Cheeers
Glenny Palmer (PS. Was it Martboy who called me a 'goddess'? Oooh. I'm overcome with the vapours. A goddess. Imagine. I'll just chuck a rose in the band of my hard hat. Oooh.)

[Glenny Palmer]

PPS. I think it was you also, Martboy, who put 2 'T's in 'Paterson' somewhere on here....? Whomever it was, I think was the same bloke who called me 'a goddess', so you don't have to write 100 times on the blackboard re mis-spelling Banjo's name. Just post me some Calamine....you little sweetheart.

[Vic Jefferies]

Read this quote by Banjo Paterson in "Song of the Pen" and reckon we might all keep it in mind: " If you read any works and you find that it is full of ideas that make you think, if those ideas are conveyed in imagery or drama and above all - if those words are smooth and natural and sonorous and as effortless as a drum beating in a distant forest - then you are probably reading great poetry."
Sort of sums it up for me.
Vic Jefferies

[Glenny Palmer]

AMEN!!

[Mal McLean]

Thanks for that, Glenny. Hope you had a good time in the scrub and I hope to catch up with you again sometime.

Mal

[Zondrae]

uum!,,
What were we talking about?

[Heather]

I think someone was going to put the billy on or something.

[Nerelie Teese]

Think that was me - I'll go and do it now. Milk, sugar?

Nerelie