ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Gees Nev we bloody debate everything else why not this ?




Bob

I thought I said why.

Thank you Shelley for bringing to light one of many various styles and types of poetry comp that this country abounds with .

There are very few members in this forum except for the likes of Terry ,Ross and myself and a very few others who are around that really know this country with its beauty and ugliness' its harshness, wonderful sights and sound.

Paterson, Lawson Gordon along with others who wrote about this land because they knew it.

Unlike many modern day poets who have not the knowledge nor feelings that this unique country has to offer for very few of you have lived and worked there in its real way.

You all cry about rhythm and meter yet very little of the works that I have seen on here has the true feeling of the Bush and the life that surrounds it.

I for one who has not the ability to write like the masters so please excuse as my English is poor.

But! The way this Forum is going, why not just leave out the word Bush.

And just call it the APA. (AUSTRALIAN POETRY ASSOCIATION)

Many thanks for posting this, Shelley. As with any anthology of poems I (like you) enjoyed some of the offerings and not others. But it’s always interesting to see what other poets are doing, whether it be in terms of format or imagery. When a poem (Missing, p 30) begins with lines like these you just have to keep reading:

I carry nations in my bones, fit whole cities in my belly, carry towers in my spine,
and yet I have been exiled from my home.
Tell me how can you go home when home is the jaw of a burning corpse?

And the same with the opening to Navigation (p 54):

A blind woman is being taught to use a cane
by a carer taught to conjure up total darkness
and translate it into imagined geometry.

And in After Mowing the Paddock (p 63), with striking imagery:

My neighbour’s sons are running in the summer rain
with just their shoes on, sweeping their jelly-bean bodies
through the crisp-cut stubble.

Likewise, at the beginning of Quiet Pieces of the World (p 72), which is about walking Tasmania’s Overland Track:

We set out, climbing towards the tight lid of clouds,
our whole week hanging from our collarbones.
This land casts at our feet its indifference to time,
unfurling like an old carpet, ragged and enormous.

Sometimes a theme, a phrase or even just a word can spark an idea for a poem of your own. The story behind The Bones Nestled Within (p 34), for example, is directly relevant to traditional bush poetry themes. And Terry would surely be interested to read If I Speak From Under the Earth (p 80). Yes, some of the poems are off-putting, but there is still much that is evocative and inspiring. (All of the above examples are taken from the 2015 anthology, which can be accessed through the website Shelley has quoted.)

Cheers
David

That's interesting and helpful David.

Yes, thank you David. The example from "Quiet Pieces of the World" brings a yearning for more.


"Our whole week hanging from our collarbones"
I felt the weight just reading these lines-time to delve deeper.

Sue

Thanks so much for your feedback, David, and to you too Neville, for your support.

David - isn't that poem After Mowing the Paddock a gem? I agree that all the excerpts you've quoted contain powerful imagery.

For me, there is one more - the one I called a "pearler" in my earlier comment. The image it conjures up is simply superb. The moon sitting "straight-backed on the barley stalks" and "rinsed by the wind", the moonlight being "packed between spaces in the barley" and so on. And who of us cannot remember an old man sitting "within his pipe"?

Here it is in its entirety - not because it is free verse or verse of any other format - but just for the pleasure of its words ...

THE KOREAN GRANDFATHER  
(c) Steve Gunther-Murphy

Rinsed by the wind the moon
stands straight-backed on the barley stalks.
The farmer sits within his pipe
at the dark edge of his field
one hand cold with earth.
The moonlight is caught high
in the pine trees
and packed between the spaces in the barley.
From the pine grove the wind comes
like a white owl
and sweeps the tide of grass
around the farmer’s knees.
His eyes linger on the barley husks.
He moves his pipe aside
and smoke
walking resurrected from his mouth
rises around his mud-caked roof.

I agree, Shelley. It's beautifully written and very evocative.

Cheers
David