The C J Dennis Challenge
Posted: Wed May 18, 2016 4:58 pm
In the Henry Lawson thread I said that, in looking at natural poetic ability and versatility, Dennis left Paterson and Lawson well behind. Nobody’s really taken me up on this, so here’s a way of making the challenge more specific.
Below I’ve selected some Dennis poems under a variety of headings based on the five areas of his work identified in the other thread. And I’ve added an extra one…“The Bush”…as this is the traditional basis on which our three iconic poets are judged. Which is intriguing, for, like Lawson, neither Paterson (a solicitor/journalist/soldier) or Dennis (another journalist) could really be described as the hard-working, sweat-of-your-brow ‘man on the land’. The adult Paterson, as a skilled horseman and sportsman, with an athletic build, was easily the best fit for the “bush” image, but in that respect none of them come within a bull’s roar of (for example) our own Ellis Campbell, who spent many years working as a rabbit-trapper, timber-cutter, farmhand, horse-breaker and shearer. (And Ellis wrote in a variety of styles, covering topics both old and new.)
Anyway, the challenge is to match the poems listed below (all are available online if you don’t know them) with comparable examples written by Paterson and Lawson. Any takers?
Cheers
David
Humour
The Play (from The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke): A funny and fiendishly clever take on Romeo and Juliet.
Emotion
The Singing Soldiers (from The Moods of Ginger Mick): An extremely moving war poem. (I read it at Toolangi last year and one of our poets walked out at the beginning. I didn’t notice, but he came up afterwards and apologised, explaining that the poem affected him so much he’d never been able to sit through it.)
Children’s Poetry
The Triantiwontigongolope (from his Book for Kids): A bouncing rhythm in a fun poem with a tongue-twisting title.
Satire
The Stones of Gosh (from The Glugs of Gosh): Political/social comment that is still relevant today.
Topical Newspaper Pieces
Dennis wrote over 3000 daily columns for the Melbourne Herald, so it’s hard to pick one poem (and I believe a lot have not yet been published). But, as we’re in election mode, I’ll go for A Plea for Artists, which was published in the Herald on August 3, 1934.
The Bush
An Old Master (from Backblock Ballads): You can’t get much “bushier” than this rollicking yarn about a bullock team. Note the internal rhyme in the third line of each stanza. (There are two versions of this poem, one longer than the other.)
Below I’ve selected some Dennis poems under a variety of headings based on the five areas of his work identified in the other thread. And I’ve added an extra one…“The Bush”…as this is the traditional basis on which our three iconic poets are judged. Which is intriguing, for, like Lawson, neither Paterson (a solicitor/journalist/soldier) or Dennis (another journalist) could really be described as the hard-working, sweat-of-your-brow ‘man on the land’. The adult Paterson, as a skilled horseman and sportsman, with an athletic build, was easily the best fit for the “bush” image, but in that respect none of them come within a bull’s roar of (for example) our own Ellis Campbell, who spent many years working as a rabbit-trapper, timber-cutter, farmhand, horse-breaker and shearer. (And Ellis wrote in a variety of styles, covering topics both old and new.)
Anyway, the challenge is to match the poems listed below (all are available online if you don’t know them) with comparable examples written by Paterson and Lawson. Any takers?
Cheers
David
Humour
The Play (from The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke): A funny and fiendishly clever take on Romeo and Juliet.
Emotion
The Singing Soldiers (from The Moods of Ginger Mick): An extremely moving war poem. (I read it at Toolangi last year and one of our poets walked out at the beginning. I didn’t notice, but he came up afterwards and apologised, explaining that the poem affected him so much he’d never been able to sit through it.)
Children’s Poetry
The Triantiwontigongolope (from his Book for Kids): A bouncing rhythm in a fun poem with a tongue-twisting title.
Satire
The Stones of Gosh (from The Glugs of Gosh): Political/social comment that is still relevant today.
Topical Newspaper Pieces
Dennis wrote over 3000 daily columns for the Melbourne Herald, so it’s hard to pick one poem (and I believe a lot have not yet been published). But, as we’re in election mode, I’ll go for A Plea for Artists, which was published in the Herald on August 3, 1934.
The Bush
An Old Master (from Backblock Ballads): You can’t get much “bushier” than this rollicking yarn about a bullock team. Note the internal rhyme in the third line of each stanza. (There are two versions of this poem, one longer than the other.)
