About Winning Competitons (an opinion)

[Neville Briggs]

Well Stephen there was a time when a painting that was not abstract modernist had no chance of winning a major art award. In fact the ability to draw was not even a criteria for art judging.
The world has turned, skilled drawing and traditional elements such as composition, form and tonal application are now recognised as quality art.
But contemporary painters have not just churned out endless imitations of Tom Roberts or Arthur Streeton, they have given tradition a modern eye.

I think that if we can give traditional poetic form a modern voice then we should succeed in being accepted. Endless imitations of Banjo Paterson won't do it
( as Manfred will tell you ). Rhyme is NOT the crime.

In a way you have succeeded with your latest book, so there. You've got a foot in the door.

[Mal McLean]

I am told goat is the most consumed meat in the world.

No wonder there is so much goat shit for us to deal with.

When I first read the goat poem I truly thought someone WAS having an Ern Malley laugh at the contemporary poetry world. Perhaps we should get together as a group and whack in the most outrageous piece of crap we can come up with under the name of ....wait for it......steady...Mel Nearly.....

On the serious side a lot of important things have been said in this thread.

For myself, I don't enter many comps anymore. I am certain that some comps can be won by writing to a formula. Some comps are judged by the same group or single judge year in and year out. Once I caught myself writing to a formula I was angry with myself and stopped entering most comps. I still whack in an entry if I believe I have something important to say socially or poetically and I can honestly say I get a lot of satisfaction out of that approach. I become disheartened when I read some winning poems that are looking a little unfinished. I too have been guilty.

I agree with Stephens earlier summation.

[David Campbell]

At the moment you're right, Stephen. The trouble is, if we don't enter competitions like these we're effectively saying that we accept the status quo and don't expect anything to change. It's something of a vicious circle. My book was probably the only one of its kind entered for the Kenneth Slessor Prize, so it's easily dismissed as an oddity. Quaint. A bit of doggerel, to use a common derogatory term. But if there had been a dozen or so books of bush poetry, then maybe the judges would have taken a bit of notice and thought: "Perhaps there's something in this." As it is, bush poetry isn't on their radar. They don't see an audience for it.

Yes, it's rather like banging your head against a brick wall, but you never know when a crack might appear. These major comps attract what little publicity is given to poetry. The results are published in leading newspapers and magazines, and the books (or single poems, if that's the case) are reviewed, with excerpts quoted. The paradox is, of course, that the general public, if they notice at all, usually aren't impressed by what they read. So poetry as an art form suffers, and we have to struggle even harder for recognition.

Bush poetry results and poems don't make it into the literary supplements of the Fairfax or Murdoch papers, or any of the major journals. The only way anything will change (and this is also related to the comments about bush poetry becoming too "boring") is to keep hammering away at that wall and trying new approaches that might reach a broader audience and attract greater respect. Not easy, by any means, but worth having a go.

Cheers
David

[Stephen Whiteside]

Yes, I don't know. I just don't see any grounds for optimism at all. I feel you have to pick your battles a bit. It feels to me too much like trying to teach ravens to fly underwater. You could spend your life doing it, and have absolutely nothing to show for it. At least there is an educational market for rhyming verse written for children. That's tough enough!

[David Campbell]

True. But as the late, great Sir Arthur Streeb-Greebling said of his many unsuccessful attempts to get ravens flying underwater: "My life has been a miserable failure." Fate decrees that some of us are doomed to spend our lives tilting at windmills. Underwater.

On a more serious note, it's disappointing to see so many comments from poets who don't, for one reason or another, enter competitions. It means that organisers lose revenue and support and, when we combine that with observations about many organisers getting "tired" because they've been doing it for so long, it's hardly surprising that comps are disappearing. According to my records we've lost at least half-a-dozen competitions in the last 4 years. Although some new ones have started (Zondrae's Kembla Flame and Glenny's Copper Croc, for example), two of those we lost were the Gippsland Wattle and the Bryan Kelleher (not offered this year...reason unknown) which had $1000 first prizes. That's a fair incentive to get people writing! Publishing is another viable avenue, but most people come to publishing after success in competitions...that's what gives them the confidence to put their work out into the public arena.

With regard to the comments about so much bush poetry being "boring" it's worth asking exactly what makes it so. From my perspective as a judge, it's not so much the style...a limited approach to metre and rhyme, although that's certainly a factor...but the content that is the main problem. Poem after poem rehashes the same old stories and jokes as if they're some brilliant new creation. And some of the stories are incredibly banal. It's true that rhyming verse is a great basis for telling a story, but there's got to be originality, flair, and imagination. Most bush poems are tied to the land, presumably because of that albatross of a word "bush". But what about tales of the sea? There are a few here and there, but not many. And then there's the whole area of non-story writing...that is, poetry that tries to convey an idea, an emotion, or perhaps even explores a philosophical concept. The theme of the $5000 Blake Prize is spirituality. I wonder what the response would be if that was suggested for a bush poetry competition? So my argument would be that if we're to take up Manfred's challenge and escape this "boring" straitjacket it's not just a matter of shaking up the style...it's a case of broadening our horizons even further in terms of what we write about.

Cheers
David

[Stephen Whiteside]

I find it interesting that Australia has never really seen itself as a maritime nation. We have a massive coastline and, of course, before the days of air travel, it required a huge ocean journey to get here - yet the whole idea has never really stuck. The shearers and drovers came along, and crushed everything in their path - at least as far as national myth making was concerned.

Nowadays, it's the trucking stories that are popular. It's interesting to talk to Jim Haynes about it. He compiles these huge collections of Australian stories on a range of themes, published by Allen & Unwin. He did a maritime collection recently, which I really enjoyed, but apparently it did not sell very well at all. The collection of trucking stories, on the other hand...

I have always loved the ocean and the sea, and do write about it quite a lot, but I am aware that there is not much market for it - outside of the children's market, of course, which is quite different.

Australia has a greater area under snow every year than Switzerland, yet the mountains have also not really captured the public's imagination to a great degree. The myth of the mountain cattlemen has, but that really only refers to the mountains in the summer time. Most Australians simply associate snow with skiing and elitism, which is a shame. Again, the children's market is different (thank heavens!).

The national myths all relate to the outback - red desert, box forests (not rainforests, though). The surf life-savers are the only coastal dwellers that have any cut-through.

Of course, the other big one is Gallipoli - but not the Western Front. And Kokoda.

It's a fickle business, this national myth making. The logic of it all is often hard to see, but once the moulds are set, they never seem to break.

[Stephen Whiteside]

Interestingly, the only time snow gets a look-in is in relation to the Snowy Mountain Hydro-Electric Scheme, and Cooma. That story seems to have stuck.

[Neville Briggs]

It's true that rhyming verse is a great basis for telling a story, but there's got to be originality, flair, and imagination. Most bush poems are tied to the land, presumably because of that albatross of a word "bush". But what about tales of the sea? There are a few here and there, but not many. And then there's the whole area of non-story writing...that is, poetry that tries to convey an idea, an emotion, or perhaps even explores a philosophical concept. The theme of the $5000 Blake Prize is spirituality. I wonder what the response would be if that was suggested for a bush poetry competition? So my argument would be that if we're to take up Manfred's challenge and escape this "boring" straitjacket it's not just a matter of shaking up the style...it's a case of broadening our horizons even further in terms of what we write about.

Cheers
David

I think they are very good points. I am no poetry master or expert on writing but in my struggle to understand, it seems to be that style is tied to theme or content. Writing a ballad in anapestic metre might go well for a sea story, but not so well as a reflection on love and loss, for that you might need a sonnet or sestina ( Algernon Swinbourne devised a rhyming sestina ). And there are plenty of other variations in the rhyme and metre form, pantoums and villanelles for example. I could be wrong but what if we encouraged sections in the comps for different forms, we might get creative themes emerging ??

I think your point about the sea is an excellent one. Most Australians live in coastal cities. How can we complain about being sidelined if we avoid the experience of the majority of Australians?

And I'll get pounced on for saying this but I don't enter comps any more. The winning works that I see published are all so long. I can't compete with epic balladists.

[Stephen Whiteside]

I agree with you, Neville, about many of the comps being won by very long ballads. That is not my long suit either, and I tend to avoid them. However, not all of the comps are necessarily looking for that sort of writing. For example, a friend recently drew my attention to the "Song, Tune and Poetry Competition" being run by the Bush Music Club in Sydney. I entered the Poetry section, and won, with a piece of fairly modest length that was not really a narrative at all. I guess my point is that sometimes it is worth scouting around for - or at least keeping your ear open to - competitions that might be a bit lesser known, and a little off the beaten track. I also won at Toolangi a couple of years ago with a piece that was probably only about 40 lines long.

[Stephen Whiteside]

On the question of the Bryan Kelleher competition, I think it was a terrible decision to disqualify Catherine Lee Clarke last year from entering again simply because she had won it three times. This must surely leave a bad taste in everybody's mouth. I can understand you might make a decision like that with a little competition that was just being run for a bit of fun, but when you have $1,000 of prize money up for grabs you are entitled to believe the organisers will be looking for the best poems/poets, bar none. This is akin to banning one particular AFL team from the competition because they have won too many premierships. It is essentially punishing success. If that's the way the Bryan Kelleher is going to be run, then perhaps it's not such a bad thing that it is being shut down.