NEW POETRY BOOK

[Neville Briggs]

I have just bought a copy of a new poetry book. It is Australian Poetry Since 1788. Edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray. Published by UNSW Press.
It's a big book with 1086 pages.


Naturally I was interested to see how the bush poets fared in this collection.
I found some interesting statistics.

It looked to me that there was a good representation of bush poets.
I noted these ones ( there were others) ;

Henry Lawson rated 10 entries ( poems )
Banjo Paterson rated 9 entries.
C.J.Dennis only rated 4 entries.
and sadly John O'Brien got a look in with only 1 entry ( Said Hanrahan )
The fictional pseudo-modernist hoax Ern Malley did better than Dennis and O'Brien with 5 entries.

Interestingly the most entries for a bush poet were for John Shaw Neilson, in fact he had more entries than any poet in the book, ...20 poems.
The next largest entry was for Roland Robinson with 16 poems.

I suppose it could be argued that Neilson and Robinson are not bush balladeers but they were certainly bush poets.
I was surprised that they rated more entries than Les Murray, Judith Wright or Rosemary Dobson.


What is the conclusion....... I dunno,
I just thought it interesting to see how contemporary "literati" might view the works of bush poets. I suppose it won't affect how we might have them rolling in the aisles at the poet's breakfasts but you never know when a bit of knowledge about how the world turns, might come in handy.

[Heather]

So you didn't learn anything you didn't already know Neville?

[manfredvijars]

Interesting Stuff Nev. I've almost finished formatting Graham Fredriksen's book, "The Halls of Learning" - over 700 pages of his original works. Les Murray, Judith Wright or Rosemary Dobson don't rate a mention in this book at all ...

[Neville Briggs]

Ah Manfred Judith Wright has a cultural centre in Brisbane, an electorate seat in Queensland, a suburb in Canberra and a street in Canberra named after her. That's why she was one I thought would be more prominent in a contemporary anthology.

Well Heather. I did learn something I didn't know before. I learnt about the poet Roland Robinson.

I had never heard of him before ( that doesn't prove anything except the limits of my knowledge
The poet Roland Robinson was born in Ireland of English parents and came to Australia when he was 9 years old. He died in 1992. His poems in this anthology are on themes such as, To a Mate, The Drovers, Kimberley Drovers, The Fitzroy River Crossing. He also made poems out of stories related to him by Aboriginal people, acknowledged of course. Mapooram, The Star Tribes, The Bunyip, The Sermon of the Birds. So you get the picture.
He listened to and collected a large number of Aboriginal stories and traditions which he set down in poetry and prose works.

Yes, if I must say it, he wrote in traditional metre ( not free verse ) sometimes rhymed sometimes not.

The most astonishing thing I learned about Roland Robinson was his list of occupations.
station houseboy
rouseabout
boundary rider
horse trainer
jockey
fencer
dam builder
factory worker
railway fettler
cleaner
art school model
ballet dancer
journalist for Sydney Morning Herald ( dance critic )
crocodile and snake catcher
golf course greenkeeper.
and..poet.

[Stephen Whiteside]

The title is interesting. "...since 1788" would appear to acknowledge that there were poets here prior to the arrival of the First Fleet, but also that they are not going to be included in this book. I wonder why. The obvious answer is that there was no written culture here prior to European colonisation. But there was an oral culture, and many of these stories have been subsequently written down. Stories. But are they poems? Did Aboriginal culture recognise 'poetry'? It's an interesting question. If not, then why bother to specify the date? And if so, why not include them? It all sounds like a rather muddled attempt at political correctness.

Of course, this place was not called Australia in 1788 - that didn't come until some time after the death of Matthew Flinders, so the date 1788 doesn't make a lot of sense for that reason either.

[Neville Briggs]

Stephen, the editors make the comment that Australian poetry anthologies of the last thirty years usually begin with Aboriginal poems. The editors say that they were surprised to discover that the practice of beginning anthologies with Aboriginal poems was first done by A.B. Paterson in his Old Bush Songs ( 1905 )

So this anthology begins with two Aboriginal songs that had been published by Banjo Paterson. They are in English ( Latin ) script but use Aboriginal words. Unfortunately Paterson didn't know the translation and nobody else has been able to translate them.
There is no information on their chronology except that Banjo Paterson got them from an elderly colonist who had collected them around the 1850s.

As well , there are, as I said above, five Aboriginal stories in verse by Roland Robinson, these are obviously post 1788. . And included in the book are 14 translations of twentieth century Aboriginal poems.

I don't think any assumption about political correctness is supported in any way by the content of the book.
My assumption is that since this work is a book, that 1788 simply refers to the beginning of the period of written history in Australia. I don't think that it matters about Matthew Flinders, this is a book on poetry not a history text book.

No doubt pre1788 Aboriginal oral tradition included poetry ( certainly songs ) , I don't know that anyone kept a record of any of that.
I suppose some might argue that rock paintings and engravings are a form of pre1788 writing, but I have never heard of these things being referred to as a type of poetry.

[Stephen Whiteside]

So you think the Aboriginal poems were all written after 1788? Sounds a bit odd. Who 'wrote' them, I wonder. We all know Australia had no written culture prior to colonisation. Seems unnecessary to put it in the title.

[Neville Briggs]

Perhaps the publishers could help if you are bothered by such issues.