Article: Australia's Greatest Rhymer

[Neville Briggs]

I think some good points are raised here. The analysing of the technical factors might sort out something. I'm not sure exactly what, but I think to be considered a good poet one would need to demonstrate some grasp of technicalities.

The thing is, I reckon Paterson understood very well the culture of the horsemen and rural station life, and I reckon his poems reflect that .
I think that's why none of the others could come up to his Man from Snowy River or Clancy of the Overflow. and I think that Henry Lawson could never write about horsemen and mustering, what Lawson did understand was what it was like When your Pants Begin to Go and the humiliation of The Men we Might Have Been, and the life of the down and outs in Sydney.
For Paterson the city people were stunted and weedy and gutter children, the city was a prison for the free souls of the bush, Paterson could never have written The Faces in the Street.
As for C J Dennis, from the little I know of him I think he was more at home with middle class outer suburbia like the back streets of Carlton and the middle class culture of the races and theatres and "outings " C J Dennis, I think could never have written The Man from Snowy River or Middleton's Rouseabout. And neither Paterson nor Lawson could have written The Sentimental Bloke. That's my thoughts from a limited knowledge.
And none of the above can be sorted out by a consideration of the rhyme and metre. It's something else much more fundamental to poetry; the authentic voice of the poet.

So I think something to strive for is to find our own authentic voice. No good me trying to do horse poems, or things about drovers or sheep mustering or shearing.. or aboriginal dreaming ..won't work no matter how good my fancy footwork with rhyming and metric schemes..

I think it is a very good discussion to have.

[Peely]

G'day Stephen

I have read quite a bit of Paterson's work and he had employed quite a number of other quite interesting rhyming schemes - including the ababcc Venus and Adonis stanza that CJ Dennis employed. Some of the others employed by Paterson:

Jim Carew (the ababcc rhyming scheme, 4 feet per line). This is the first of 8 stanzas:

Born of a thoroughbred English race,
Well proportioned and closely knit,
Neat of figure and handsome face,
Always ready and always fit,
Hard and wiry of limb and thew,
That was the ne'er-do-well Jim Carew.

Jim Carew is not the only example of this stanza that I have seen in Paterson's writing, there are others too ("An Idyll of Dandaloo" and "How Gilbert Died" are just two of those). So to say that he didn't attempt this rhyming scheme is rubbish.

With the Cattle (rhymed ababcdcdeefggf). In the first two stanzas, f = d. In terms of feet, it has an arrangement of 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 4, 3, 3, 3, 7, 3, 3, 7. This is the first of 8 stanzas:

The drought is down on field and flock,
The river-bed is dry;
And we must shift the starving stock
Before the cattle die.
We muster up with weary hearts
At breaking of the day,
And turn our heads to foreign parts,
To take the stock away.
And it's hunt 'em up and dog 'em,
And it's get the whip and flog 'em,
For it's weary work is droving when they're dying every day;
By stock-routes bare and eaten,
On dusty roads and beaten,
With half a chance to save their lives we take the stock away.

Rio Grande's Last Race (rhymed abaab). In terms of feet, it has 4, 3, 4, 4, 3. This is the first of 21 stanzas

Now this was what Macpherson told
While waiting in the stand;
A reckless rider, over-bold,
The only man with hands to hold
The rushing Rio Grande.

I did manage to find a couple of Paterson's with seven line stanzas. A Ballad of Ducks has lines of equal length, rhymed abaaccb. An Evening in Dandaloo and A Dream of the Melbourne Cup are others but with lines of unequal length.

I am not sure how you have worked out your structures using beats, given that "The Man from Snowy River" alternates between 7 feet (odd lines) and 5 feet (even lines) per line and "Clancy of the Overflow" has 8 feet per line as just two examples from your article.

There are a number of other rhyming schemes other than these ones mentioned here.

I have read a good amount of CJ Dennis (The Sentimental Bloke series of books and the Jim of the Hills book and a number of his poems otherwise. I enjoy his writing, as I do with that of Paterson and Lawson. I would agree that Dennis was very skilled in his use of rhyme. Dennis may have used more variation in the rhyming schemes employed than the other two though, so in that sense he was possibly a little more skilled.

Regards


John Peel

[Stephen Whiteside]

Thanks, John. I appreciate the corrections.

My system of counting beats is pretty basic. I just clap my hands or tap my foot on the strong beats, as if it was a piece of music.

[Peely]

No Worries Stephen

I suspected that might have been the way you worked it out, just wasn't 100 percent sure if that was what you meant.

Regards


John Peel

[r.magnay]

I have never been a great fan of Dennis, I like both Lawson and Paterson along with many other bush poets, Stephen on the other hand is a massive fan of Dennis, but I gather still likes most bush poets...(just a bit less ) I think that that comparing them is OK from a personal point of view, but when it comes down to judging their skill I don't think we can ever arrive at an apples for apples situation, after all, the only competition these bloke entered was a business affair...who will buy my work? I reckon Neville is pretty much onto it and I reckon it shows in the poetry we write and post, if you know the subject I believe it shows through, Matt posted a poem sometime ago about a day in the stock camp, the minute I read it I thought, "this bloke is either very, very well read, or he has been there and done that", turned out it was the latter. (He may be well read as well though.. ) Maybe because I knew what he was on about when perhaps many townies wouldn't made me love the poem when many of them may not. I have quizzed one of our most respected modern day poets and mentors about the things that the masters did...(like inversions).. that we get frowned upon for, only to be told they are just having a bit of fun....I have never bought that, I believe it fitted so they used it, maybe they needed to meet a deadline or had too many ales or just couldn't be buggered, but I have never believed that they were just having a bit of fun, as I said, the only competition they entered was who will buy my work? As Frank pointed out, he, like many of us have no idea what is going on when people start talking all the tech talk, but he writes and and performs and is very successful....it all gets back to the same old line...if you like it it is good, if you don't it is bad!

[Stephen Whiteside]

I was surprised to learn they did actually have competitions back then. Not only that, but Dennis entered a songwriting competition, and won it! I'm talking about 'The Australaise'.

He refers to it in this extract from a letter he wrote to Garry Roberts on 23rd September, 1913:



Just now I am trying to grind out a rhyme for the National Song Competition. "Grind out" is the only term, for good songs, national or other, are not produced this way.

I am willing to wager the best of them will be mechanical and stilted.

The idea, or inspiration, or whatever you care to call it, seldom comes to a writer at the right moment from a financial standpoint. If it does it will be pure luck, and the best craftsman will probably win the competition.

Still, a £100 is worth trying for, even by the affluent author of a book of verse; but who can wax patriotic who read recent political news?



You can find the complete letter here:
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/d ... 30923.html

[r.magnay]

'morning Stephen,
I too am surprised about the competitions, sorta blows a hole in my reasoning a bit, a hundred quid too! That would have been big money then, you would still compete for that now! Thanks for that mate.

[Leonie]

Stephen that's priceless. Seems his view of comps was much the same as a lot of people on this forum today.

[Neville Briggs]

One thing I thought of when reading through this discussion.
These poets we are talking about have long gone, yet a couple of generations later, people still remember them and even those who don't know bush poetry, can recognise at least a couple of lines from their work.

What makes a particular line or verse stand out in people's memory so that fifty, a hundred or more years later, it still resonates in our imagination. Good question..a very good question.

We can win poetry competition prizes, so what.
I reckon the great prize is to come up with something, maybe just very small which will capture the minds of our listeners so much, that it becomes embedded in our culture.
I don't think that we can engineer that to happen, I think it is only possible if we apply the same labour and integrity to art that we see in the " masters "
One of the great artists said " We can't start where the great master's left off, we must start where they started and with the same integrity "

In other words, analysing C J Dennis, Lawson and Paterson's techniques won't teach us how to be good poets, we have to do the same grind as they did, observing life and thinking out the way to tell it in the most expressive language of our time.

[keats]

Here here Neville been thinking of a way to say that for a very long time, but could not have possibly stated it any better than you just have!