Melinda Smith

[Stephen Whiteside]

Somewhere recently - and I can't find it now - there was some discussion about the poetry (written by Melinda Smith) that won the Prime Minister's Prize last year. It seemed to greatly upset a few people.

I had the good fortune of seeing Melinda perform her poetry at the National Folk Festival this year. I was able to record her on my phone, and received permission from her to post the videos publicly.

I have placed the first of these on YouTube. (More to follow.)

You can find it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMi6yWEe7Jk

[manfredvijars]

Thanks Stephen.
There's no doubt that the piece is full of metaphor and simile, and they are well placed. The judges pick and a deserved win.

For myself, after reading this and other metaphor/simile compositions (as well as dabbling myself), I find I remain staunchly an ardent rhymester ...

Thanks for posting ...

[Neville Briggs]

I think the judges would have had to deduct a lot of marks from Melinda, her intro is too ad hoc , fiddling with her hair and reading from a scrappy piece of paper. Poor eye contact, unanimated speech. No way that she is an award winning poet.
I am also a staunchly ardent rhymester, I find, Baa Baa Black Sheep and The Cat in the Hat are much more poetic than Les Murray's metaphoric/simile Driving Through Sawmill Towns.

[Stephen Whiteside]

I remain an unapologetic rhymer, too. I just wanted to flesh out the picture a bit. I felt she was being demonised.

[Heather]

Not an award winning poet or not an award winning reciter Neville?

[Neville Briggs]

She could never win the Pewter Wombat, a very sought after trophy, awarded for the most skilful exact rhyme and clean metre in the genre of the side slapping/ roll in the aisle jokes.

[Terry]

Hi Stephen
I found it interesting although it's not my sort of thing,
but at least you could make sense of what she was saying.

Hard to imagining it keeping the average punter riveted though.

A thing in it's favour; it was mercifully short.

Terry

[Bob Pacey]

" but at least you could make sense of what she was saying."

You could Terry ? Well I'll be buggered ! It aroused no interest in me at all.

They say it is all in the delivery but it would need a hell of a lot more delivery to be any good in my opinion.


Bob

[Stephen Whiteside]

All very reasonable comments. I was simply trying to make the point that she is a very pleasant lady, not the Devil Incarnate.

[Terry]

Hi Bob
My interest was mostly out of curiosity, so I played it twice and listened carefully;
must admit the "forward slash" comments threw me a bit.
But as Stephen said, she did sound like a nice enough person to me.

There's no doubt though that to people like me (ancients) it's hard to believe it's poetry,
in the sense of what poetry has always been in my mind.

Cheers Terry