The Ballad of Mitchell Bert

[Heather]

Sure to be a money spinner!

[Bob Pacey]

Oh I did forget to say that I enjoyed it,

I really like this type of presentation where the story line keeps you interested and on hold until the end and still then you cannot envisage the ending.


Bob

[Terry]

Just goes to show though, no matter how it was done; just how great bush poetry can be when done well.


Terry

[Neville Briggs]

Sorry to be a party pooper folks but can't you see that the ballad of Mitchell Bert is a send-up, a satire with it's mock seriousness. The introduction says words to the effect that bush poetry is poetry done with a hat on, why do you think the bloke keeps taking his hat off and on ( to draw attention to the hat ? ). It is intended to depict bush poetry as a sort of hayseed doggerel done by faux bushies in Akubras.
It is an excellent performance all the same.

[Heather]

I beg to disagree Neville. It's a great yarn told well. The hat bit is a tad overdone though.

You can leave your hat on!

Heather

[Neville Briggs]

You don't have to beg to disagree, you're a woman.

[Heather]

Thanks for pointing that out Neville.

[Glenny Palmer]

I enjoyed his presentation....but I'm with Heather. The hat! What's with the hat? Maybe Neville has a point? While his phrasing was very good, I did think he was a tad too fast in places. AND who the devil IS he & WHO wrote the piece?

Anyway... what I really want to say is : I was priveleged to share the stage in the USA with the celebrated American poet, Waddie Mitchell.....and I will NEVER forget his performances. He is the best I have ever seen/heard (apart from Milton maybe.) Waddie performs as if he's just leaning across the fence having a lazy chat. Absolutely devoid of any dum de dum de dum, to the extent that it's difficult to spot the rhyme. The man is BRILLIANT. (IMO) See what you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2Ndh7Cq7wI

[Bob Pacey]

Written and performed by comedian Andy Matthews Glenny. He is off the show called Get It Up Ya Australia.


The show can be bit crude at times

Bob

[Neville Briggs]

Interesting Bob. See, I told you so, satire.


That's very interesting Glenny, what you say about the conversational delivery that is less dum de dum. There are audios of Robert Frost on the net, and Frost does his poetry the conversational way. And yet there is also on the net a very old cylinder recording of Alfred Lord Tennyson reciting his poem The Charge of The Light Brigade and he is very formal in the old " elocution " style" ( some of us oldies can remember such things )
There is also an internet audio of Dorothea McKellar saying " My Country ", again in the elocution style.

I wonder if there are any recordings of Dennis doing Sentimental Bloke or Paterson doing Clancy. Wouldn't it be something to hear Shakespeare performing Shakespeare, or William Blake saying The Tyger.

So what do we do. I think that language and culture changes and conversational style is more in line with the way we made spoken presentations to-day.
However...
I watched the cowboy video. I wonder whether he has gone too far into the chatty narrative style, is it really the sound of poetry ? One of the criticisms I see on this site is that "free verse" is just narrative without poetic elements or feel. Maybe our cowboy friend has done just that?

Michelle Boisseau, ((University literature professor ) says that " Poetic rhythm comes from blending the fixed ( metre ) and the flexible ( speech ) . It's neither precisely the te tum te tum of metre nor reproduction of casual speech. A poem is read as something between the two "