I spy with my little eye
Posted: Tue Jan 04, 2011 2:15 pm
I bought a very nice art book the other day, it's called Each Man's Wilderness and it only cost me $5 in the second hand book shop. The book has a number of fine illustrated articles on Australian artists who have done paintings of the outback and the bush.
I found very interesting a comment by artist John Borrack, who said "..it is not the duty of the artist to express what is obvious to everyone: if it was, he would not bother to interpret the actual fact with a painted representation "
I think this is a very significant insight, and we could apply the same to bush poetry.
Why should we bother to set out in verse , stories and narratives and events in just the way anyone could in prose, with the same words and the same effect. We need to do more than just transcribe prose into metre and rhyme, much more. Why should we do it like the old Bulletin poets, its already been done. Following on from John Borrack, I think, if we are going to be poets, we need to say it in a way that brings to attention to what is not obvious to everyone, and in the language of to-day..
Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson saw what was not obvious to everyone, the stockman as a romantic "knight", the swaggie as a philosopher and symbol of perseverence, mateship as a an honourable obligation..and so on.
We can't see things the way Paterson and Lawson did, we live in a different world. Imitation Bulletin bush poetry won't last, no matter how funny or entertaining or historically interesting we think tales of the Australian bush might be, or how clever the Patersons and Lawsons were , we have to find the voice of today otherwise people will stop listening, they've heard it all before.
Neville
I found very interesting a comment by artist John Borrack, who said "..it is not the duty of the artist to express what is obvious to everyone: if it was, he would not bother to interpret the actual fact with a painted representation "
I think this is a very significant insight, and we could apply the same to bush poetry.
Why should we bother to set out in verse , stories and narratives and events in just the way anyone could in prose, with the same words and the same effect. We need to do more than just transcribe prose into metre and rhyme, much more. Why should we do it like the old Bulletin poets, its already been done. Following on from John Borrack, I think, if we are going to be poets, we need to say it in a way that brings to attention to what is not obvious to everyone, and in the language of to-day..
Henry Lawson and Banjo Paterson saw what was not obvious to everyone, the stockman as a romantic "knight", the swaggie as a philosopher and symbol of perseverence, mateship as a an honourable obligation..and so on.
We can't see things the way Paterson and Lawson did, we live in a different world. Imitation Bulletin bush poetry won't last, no matter how funny or entertaining or historically interesting we think tales of the Australian bush might be, or how clever the Patersons and Lawsons were , we have to find the voice of today otherwise people will stop listening, they've heard it all before.
Neville