Article: Australia's Greatest Rhymer

[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!

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, I agree with you too, Neville. I am fascinated by patterns, and that is partly what attracts me to Dennis. His patterns are so intricate. It's a bit like studying snow-flakes. There probably was a time when I felt if I could work out a lot of his 'tricks' it would help me to be a better writer. I probably don't think that any more (it's a bit hard to be sure exactly what I think sometimes!), though it probably hasn't done me any harm either. One thing I do enjoy is writing parodies, and I have had a lot of fun writing parodies of Dennis - and a knowledge of his rhyming patterns certainly helped then.

By studying Dennis so closely I have also learnt a lot about the ways I differ from him (apart from the simple matter of raw talent - I think I already knew that!). For example, I have written in the ABABCC pattern, but I find it hard work, and can't really be bothered with it as a rule. It must have come quite naturally to him, though, because he did it so often.

I'm very intrigued by his use of the shorter line. It works brilliantly in his hands, but I can't make it work at all.

Does any of this help me to be a better writer? Well, yes and no. Inspiration is the key, as you say, but perspiration is important, too. What do they say? 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration? Anything that keeps me pushing a pen across a piece of paper, for whatever reason, is probably helping me in subtle, indirect ways that I am not even aware of.

At the end of the day, though, whether it helps me to be a better writer or not isn't really the point. If I'm enjoying it, and having fun, and finding it stimulating and challenging, it's an end in itself. Literary analysis, whatever form it takes, needs no justification.

[Vic Jefferies]

Your iambics are a pure delight
your trochees are terrific
Your spondees are out of sight
but your anapests are horrific!

I dips me lid to those who obviously have a great grasp of scansion and wish I were one of them. However scansion by itself does not produce poetry.
A poem, to be successful, must touch the senses, higher or lower and invoke a reaction from the reader/listener. It must, as they say of art, "portray more than it depicts." It should always be something we want to hear or read again. For my money I know I have produced something worthwhile when someone asks to hear it again or for a copy or especially when someone else performs or presents my work.
I always write with the audience in mind (well, most of the time) and I try to create something that will invoke that reactions I spoke of.
Henry Lawson, Banjo and the rest including CJ Dennis understood this and that is why we remember them and what they wrote.
Whether Henry strayed too far from the rules or not he is without doubt a great poet and is still revered by thousands. I am aware of the often stated opinion that he was not much of a poet and excelled only at writing short stories but he will always be one of my favourites and I dare say he will still be remembered in another hundred years for his poetry. Whatever the scansion or mistakes: Faces in the Street;Second Class Wait Here; The Ballad of the Drovers and Do They Think I Do Not Know, among many others will do me for great poems and meaningful writing!
However CJ Dennis is also one of my favourites and was obviously a genius. His problem is that a great deal of his work was topical and is therefore now dated somewhat. Notwithstanding this he wrote many wonderful poems and I believe him to be Australia's most prolific professional poet writing far more poems than Lawson. His The Old Master is a classic and there are few funnier pieces than The Play when it is properly performed. His Digger Smith poems are some of the most touching war poems imaginable. I agree with Stephen in that John Derum's performances of Dennis' work is beyond compare as a recitation of Australian poetry.

Vic Jefferies

[Neville Briggs]

it's a bit hard to be sure exactly what I think sometimes

I can relate to that Stephen.

[william williams]

Paterson or Lawson and many, many others

You know it amazes me to read the works of our masters and feel the depth of their feelings with the words that they have written and yet how many of you have truthfully lived and survived out in the true bush as these writers have, suffered the privations that Lawson and Paterson did I know Lawson was a drunkard and not much more than a derelict yet he lived and wrote wonderful meaning full works ( thank god for who ever straightened up his works for publication I would reckon their ability is greater than we give them credit for)
I noticing that many of Lawson and Paterson’s works in books were copied from the Bulletin (could not those works have been altered into correct use before printing in the Bulletin)?
Now why do we dramatically compare these writers.
Do you compare a famous racehorse to a draught horse or a Mini Minor to a Rolls Royce well I don’t, but I appreciate them all for what they are horses, cars, and writers

Now on the forum we have many learned members sprouting there opinion about writers quite eloquently and there is nothing wrong with that but to have performers stating certain writers are not much good to me that indicates a low quality in their performances. Most performers can do a good job on well known or humorous Poems pieces
But let them perform a work by a well known writer that has a lot of depth and feeling in his work
For example Years ago I had the good luck to be introduced to Leonard Teale and at the dinner that night at Embers night club at Toorak in Melbourne. Leonard Teale was invited to sit with his wife and dine with my future fiancé and her parents at our table and it was there at the Night Club he recited the Man from Snowy River which was fantastic and later on he recited Lawson’s poem Will You Write it Down for Me.
Now that is not a bad poem but the feeling that he portrayed with his voice created far more than written words can ever do. Now that is a performer who can bring alive some of those old writers works.
so please don't bypass a piece just because it does not apeal to you

BILL WILLIAMS