Slessor

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Neville Briggs
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Re: Slessor

Post by Neville Briggs » Sat Jun 06, 2015 3:07 pm

I love the dogs licking up the sunlight :) and it is metred and RHYMES. :lol:
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

Heather

Re: Slessor

Post by Heather » Sat Jun 06, 2015 3:43 pm

Something for everyone then Neville :lol: I especially love the first and third stanzas but every time I read it I find something new to lap up. Magic!

Heather :)

Heather

Re: Slessor

Post by Heather » Sat Jun 06, 2015 5:10 pm

Beach Burial is a good 'un too David. :)

manfredvijars

Re: Slessor

Post by manfredvijars » Sat Jun 06, 2015 6:52 pm

... as for me, I'm merely "charged with ale and unconcern"

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David Campbell
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Re: Slessor

Post by David Campbell » Sat Jun 06, 2015 7:22 pm

Yes, Heather, those first two lines say so much: "Softly and humbly to the Gulf of Arabs/The convoys of dead sailors come".

And, with "Country Towns", we have a good example of what we need to be encouraging in terms of imagery. The problem with the line that Bob quoted is that it’s been done umpteen times before…breezes are always “gentle” and they make ghost gums “sway”. So? It gets very “ho-hum” after a while and loses its impact, and you look for something fresh, something that really brings an image or a mood to life. Lines like “Verandas baked with musky sleep/Mulberry faces dozing deep/And dogs that lick the sunlight up” show how words (“baked”, “musky”, “mulberry” and “lick”) can be used in unusual contexts to create an effect.

Similarly, in the first poem, a line like “With smoky antlers broken in the sky” evokes (for me, anyway) splintered trees, still trailing smoke after a bushfire. The use of “antlers” instead of the expected “branches” adds that something extra to the image. Poetry needs to go beyond merely telling a story…it needs to challenge, to provoke a response, to take the reader somewhere new. As you say, it's not handed to you on a plate. Slessor also has trees like “archers’ volleys”, “rain gone wooden”, “fingers blindly feeling”…and so on, each one conjuring a different image. So much more thought-provoking than “gentle breezes”! The old saying of “show, don’t tell” should always be kept in mind.

Thanks again for posting them!
David

Neville Briggs
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Re: Slessor

Post by Neville Briggs » Sat Jun 06, 2015 7:29 pm

Poetry is a fresh look and a fresh listen.

Robert Frost
Neville
" Prose is description, poetry is presence " Les Murray.

warooa

Re: Slessor

Post by warooa » Sat Jun 06, 2015 10:07 pm

Great to revisit Slessor . . . lovely wordage. Thanks Heather.

Marty

Heather

Re: Slessor

Post by Heather » Sat Jun 06, 2015 10:27 pm

Thanks David. When I read “With smoky antlers broken in the sky”, I see dead branches without leaves reaching up to the sky like antlers. It's a great piece of imagery. I have photos taken after the bushfires in 2009 where I can see just that.

The more I read Country Towns the more l enjoy it.

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Shelley Hansen
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Re: Slessor

Post by Shelley Hansen » Wed Jun 10, 2015 3:52 pm

Ah! The masterly pen of Kenneth Slessor! Reading these posts I've just had a few moments of pure schooldays nostalgia!!

While we're all sharing our favourites, this is mine. It is non-rhyming - so at the risk of prodding the bear ... :o

THE NIGHT-RIDE (Kenneth Slessor)

Gas flaring on the yellow platform; voices running up and down;
Milk-tins in cold dented silver; half-awake I stare,
Pull up the blind, blink out - all sounds are drugged;
The slow blowing of passengers asleep;
Engines yawning; water in heavy drips;
Black, sinister travellers, lumbering up the station,
One moment in the window, hooked over bags;
Hurrying, unknown faces - boxes with strange labels -
All groping clumsily to mysterious ends,
Out of the gaslight, dragged by private Fates.
Their echoes die. The dark train shakes and plunges;
Bells cry out; the night-ride starts again.
Soon I shall look out into nothing but blackness,
Pale, windy fields. The old roar and knock of the rails
Melts in dull fury. Pull down the blind. Sleep. Sleep.
Nothing but grey, rushing rivers of bush outside.
Gaslight and milk-cans. Of Rapptown I recall nothing else.

It is such a powerful word picture - I can hear it, smell it, feel it. Don't you just love "engines yawning" ... and "rushing rivers of bush"?

Whenever I read this I think of our trip a few years ago on the Indian Pacific - with station stops in the wee small hours. No gaslight or milk-cans, but the atmosphere is still there!

Cheers, Shelley
Shelley Hansen
Lady of Lines
http://www.shelleyhansen.com

"Look fer yer profits in the 'earts o' friends,
fer 'atin' never paid no dividends."
(CJ Dennis "The Mooch o' Life")

Vic Jefferies
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Re: Slessor

Post by Vic Jefferies » Thu Jun 11, 2015 10:24 am

Just as a contrast here is Lawson's train trip (with rhyme):

On The Night Train

Have you seen the bush by moonlight, from the train, go running by?
Blackened log and stump and sapling, ghostly trees all dead and dry;
Here a patch of glassy water; there a glimpse of mystic sky?
Have you heard the still voice calling — yet so warm, and yet so cold:
"I'm the Mother-Bush that bore you! Come to me when you are old"?

Did you see the Bush below you sweeping darkly to the Range,
All unchanged and all unchanging, yet so very old and strange!
While you thought in softened anger of the things that did estrange?
(Did you hear the Bush a-calling, when your heart was young and bold:
"I'm the Mother-bush that nursed you; Come to me when you are old"?)

In the cutting or the tunnel, out of sight of stock or shed,
Did you hear the grey Bush calling from the pine-ridge overhead:
"You have seen the seas and cities — all is cold to you, or dead —
All seems done and all seems told, but the grey-light turns to gold!
I'm the Mother-Bush that loves you — come to me now you are old"?

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