ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Syncopation and improvisation work within bars (the drunken kind as well) and have quantifiable rythme.

Now don't you go disparaging the predilections of an accomplished writer of prose and poetry ...

Oh you two!

South of my days' circle, part of my blood's country, rises that tableland, high delicate outline of bony slopes wincing under the winter, low trees, blue leaved and olive, outcropping granite - clean, lean, hungry country. .....

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, ...


It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity, ...

----------------------------------------------

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

..... and Judith Wright's "South of my Days"??

What about Judith Wright's "Bullocky"

Judith Wright's, "South of my Days" was the piece in question ...

Prose!!

I had a friend at school we used to call him a Proser Is that the same ?


Bob

Manfred my Mr Oxford says: Poem 1 a metrical composition, usually concerned with feeling or imaginative description. 2 an elevated composition in verse or prose. 3 something with poetic qualities.

Seems we might have to rethink our position!

And Vic, Judith Wrights poem South of My Days fulfils all of those criteria that you have set out there, including metrical because her lines are measured ( or metred ) hence metrical.

I should say folks that Vic Jeffries does a wonderful rendition of Wilfred Owen's poem Dulce et Decorum. That poem is one that the sticklers would balk at because although it is metred and rhymed, the form is complex and sounds irregular in parts.

So we might want to pass on Judith Wright's South of My Days because it is free verse. Do we also pass on Wilfred Owen's Dulce et Decorum because even though it is metre and rhyme, the substitutions and varied pace make that a metered poem that might to some ears sound like free verse.
Look it up on the net, you'll see what I mean.

Thank you Neville, that is very nice of you. Dulce Et Decorum Est is a wonderful poem that almost falls between free verse and traditional poetry. It has rhyme and metre but in a difficult and complicated fashion that might lead some to think it is free verse.

Another of my favourite poems is They'll Tell You About Me by Ian Mudie. It is in my opinion one of the best bush poems ever written and has more references to Australia, Australian folk lore and the Australian way of life than any other poem I have ever read and some people think it is written with rhyme but it is in fact free verse!