Are there limits to metre and rhyme?

[manfredvijars]

Back in 2007 I wrote a piece called "Died Game" about bushranger Fred Lowry.
The phrase, "Tellem I died game!" is often falsely attributed to Ned Kelly.
To reinforce and repeat the name "Fred Lowry" through the story, I unashamedly
took example from Alfred Noyes, "The Highwayman" which suited my purpose perfectly.

I entered the piece into a couple of competitions around that time, without success. However
one judge remarked, "Alfred Noyes would be pleased". Not sure how to take that, but couldn't help
wondering if the remark, "Banjo/Henry would be pleased" would be written on any of
the other pieces on his bench.

Died Game
(September – 2007)

The moon splashed gold on the roadway - between the tall ghost gums;
The crisp still air hangs chilly as down the road he comes,
Six foot two and wiry an outlaw by decree;
... the bushranger Fred Lowry -
... fully armed Fred Lowry -
a determined Fredrick Lowry – a desperate escapee.

He robbed the coach out from Mudgee - the laden Mudgee Mail
With Foley and young Cummins they forced the coach to bail.
They didn't rob the women - for there before their eyes
... one case was full of banknotes -
... tattered, well worn banknotes -
a fortune in old banknotes - for them a kingly prize.
...

======================================

My preference is to be 'different'.

One recent piece that will never see a competition is included below, well, three stanzas out of twenty-eight anyway.

Without meaning to be arrogant, I do have bigger plans for this piece (and a few others as well) and they're well on their way.


Pennefather River
(July 2013)

They came from the North to the Antipodes, sailing mysterious oceans
... Sent off to the Edge that was 'End of the World'
... Mainsails are taut and topgallants unfurled
... fists 'round the rigging and tiller are curled
....... while trusting their flimsy wood vessels.

The challenge to questions of How, When and Where, to that South Land, known as Incognito
... as onward they sailed extending their ken -
... re-setting, revising again and again.
... Courageous, fool-hardy old Maritime men
....... who were often forced back by the answers.

Pitching and yawing through foam, crest and trough, enduring their local maelstroms.
... Placating the gods of the old Maritime
... by praying that favours upon them may shine
... while extending the edges of Man's borderline
....... But their common God was the weather.

....

=============================

Another piece that will never see a competition but has recently been turned into a screen-play ...

Bargo Bargo
(July 2006)

.... On the night the old man died; the brumby stallion reared outside
....... whinnied like a banshee loud and shrill!
.... then cleared the highest rail, his hooves like pounding hail -
....... sped him off towards the farthest hill
.... and then from faraway the brumby's screaming neigh
....... even gave old Lucifer a chill.

Out West, near the Grey Mare Range, where things are very strange
... and need a mountain high of explanation;
All the locals had withdrawn - and travellers just move on;
... folks view this place with fear and trepidation.
To make 'Bargo Bargo' home, one bloke came here alone -
... this isolated place of desolation.

.....



What I'm trying to put across in this post is that, concentrating purely on competitions can restrict and curtail our creativity as well as locking us into one-dimensional thinking.

Do I see 'limits' to metre and rhyme? NO, not creatively! But I do see rhyme and metre curtailed and moulded by those who should know better.
If there are no limits to our creativity then there are no limits to where we push our craft ...

Manfred.

[manfredvijars]

Nope! None of that has anything to do with poetic content! You could be describing an essay or a written report.

Sorry Vic, I disagree. If the piece has made it past the first filters of rhyme and metre, then poetic content is implied.

The second phase has more to do with the creative content, and, as you would be aware, determining 'creative' content is very subjective.

a. Story, ... Creative
b. Grammar, ... creativity is well founded??
c. word usage, ... creative
d. application of grammar, .... creativity is well founded again ...
e. rich language and .... creative
f. WOW factor. ... And creative ...

Applying conditions of creativity would only inhibit their flow ...

[David Campbell]

Thanks, Manfred, for those contributions, but it looks as though further responses have dried up, so the question is: what next? There is clearly strong support for greater flexibility, although it’s hard to know whether those who didn’t get involved in the discussion agree with what’s being said, or simply don’t want to go against the prevailing view. Anyway, here are some thoughts.

A broader image of written bush poetry can initially be promoted through three obvious areas…this website, the magazine and competitions. There’s plenty of opportunity for posting poems that trial fresh ideas in the poetry section of this site, and, to the wider membership, via the magazine. Responses to the latter could be interesting as there will undoubtedly be quite a number who will resist any suggestion of a move away from the past. But there is no reason why all views can’t be accommodated as it’s not a case of abandoning one for the other, but merely a matter of stretching boundaries.

Individual competitions can cater for different preferences. Some may wish to continue with rules such as: “All entries must be in bush ballad format and have good rhyme, rhythm and metre.” Others, as our Toolangi C. J. Dennis competition here in Victoria is doing, could mix things up. It requires poems to be written “in or around the style of C. J. Dennis”, but in the themed section entrants have to write about an Australian news item from the 12 months leading up to the closing date. So although the style is still traditional, the content must be contemporary.

And other competitions might signal acceptance of greater overall flexibility with a guideline something like: “While honouring the traditions of metre and rhyme, entrants are encouraged to take a contemporary approach to both structure and content.” So judges and poets alike know what is possible.

Judging bush poetry at the moment is both a pleasure and a frustration…a pleasure because there are objective rules about metre and rhyme to be followed, but a frustration in that (following on from Marty B's comment) good poems may be downgraded for technical reasons that can’t be overlooked. I would have been blown away if Cockspur Bush had surfaced in a bush poetry competition, but imagine the repercussions if I’d given it a prize and it had appeared in the magazine!

In conclusion, have a look at a Chris Wallace-Crabbe poem called Melbourne (http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/w ... e-0064010#). It’d be great to think that a poem like this could be accepted at face value in any of the above forums.

Cheers
David

[Bob Pacey]

Just had a read of it David but I find that such ( as I call them ) flowery poems really do not paint a picture for me. Cleverly written no doubt but I don't think as has been said before that I could close my eyes and picture what the poet was seeing ?


Perhaps that's just me , Something like Bobby Millers I think it was called The Aussie does it for me.

Have you seen the gentle breezes
stir the ghost gums tall and white.
Have you gazed upon the Southern Cross
in the crispness of the night.

Bob

[David Campbell]

Thanks for checking it out, Bob. I get the impression that you prefer the positive in poetry (the romantic, perhaps?), and that's fair enough. So do a lot of people. Melbourne is a very negative poem...the picture it paints is not at all flattering, and that may not go down well. I won't say anything more for the moment, but will be interested to see how others respond to it.

Cheers
David

[Maureen K Clifford]

It comes across to me as the writer being rather apathetic about (presumably) his home town - so blase about it all that it is perceived to have sunk below the depths of ordinariness and into the good old Aussie 'she'll be right' category.

I suspect we are all a bit guilty of that syndrome at times. Aussies perceive that travel overseas is so much better than travel in Australia - it's certainly cheaper in many places. Our language has been replaced by Americanisms, the clothing our young ones wear is the clothing of the ghettos of America and yet we live in one of the most culturally diverse countries in the world. One of the most beautiful and peaceful contries of the world and we treat our country with impunity, mining her, creating toxic waste, polluting watertables.

We are guilty of selling off the farm and yet seem to not care overly much about that. Some of our best ideas are patented overseas because we have become apathetic and our industry - what industry do we really have other than mining? We are seeing our farmers go to the wall with unrealistic and unsustainable prices negotiated by the supermarkets. We don't seem to think it has anything to do with us.

Probably not the most inspiring poem I have read but perhaps one of the more truthful

[Neville Briggs]

I can't agree Bob, that Chris Wallace-Crabbe's poem is flowery. It seems quite down-to-earth to me.

To read a poem like this, one has to stand in the right place and look at it from the proper angle. It's not a ballad, it's not a story, it's not really a topographical view ( a little bit of that ). I could be wrong, but to my mind it is a very well done meditation on Melbourne as the heartland of conservatism, perhaps even mediocrity. And I think not judgemental but with a touch of regret.

You're not supposed to get just an image of Melbourne landscape but an image of Melbourne's spirit. I theenk.

I would celebrate if bush poets could manage to do as well as this in the written work. I would celebrate if I could do as well, I'm not up to it. But by the time I'm as old as Chris Wallace-Crabbe I might be just starting to get the idea ( he turned 80 this year ).

[Heather]

One way poems can be made a little more interesting is by varying the line length. I've used the example of Anzac Cove by Leon Gellert before but it's only short so I'll include it again. (I think there is a variation in the metre too). I like this three line format. The rhymes are there but not bleeding obvious and the longer third line breaks up the monotony of the metre. Not only that, the poem is short and paints a picture in twelve short lines - nothing more is needed. I know other poets have used differing line lengths but don't have my books in front of me - maybe others can find a few.

Here's Anzac Cove:

Anzac Cove

There’s a lonely stretch of hillocks:
There’s a beach asleep and drear:
There’s a battered broken fort beside the sea.

There are sunken trampled graves:
And a little rotting pier:
And winding paths that wind unceasingly.

There’s a torn and silent valley:
There’s a tiny rivulet
With some blood upon the stones beside its mouth.

There are lines of buried bones:
There’s an unpaid waiting debt :
There’s a sound of gentle sobbing in the South.

Leon Gellert

[Heather]

Here's one stanza from "Another Day" by M. Mcloughlin. I love this poem and it is the only one I have ever learned to recite. I've broken this six line stanza into two lots of three lines to illustrate my point.

"A smear of cloud anticipates
the failing sun and now awaits
adornment far beyond the artists' skill.

And in good time majestic swales
of colour fill the cirrus sails
that clear celestial decks for night to fill."


By taking breaths, I read it like this and you can see how the rhymes have been camoflaged:
[i]"A smear of cloud anticipates the failing sun
and now awaits adornment far beyond the artists' skill.[/i]

And in good time
majestic swales of colour fill the cirrus sails
that clear celestial decks for night to fill."

Three lines continue in one continuous sentence which makes the rhymes in lines one and two less obvious. You do not stop at the end of each line. The only rhymes which are obvious are the ones at the end of the third and sixth lines - again a bit like Gellert's Anzac Cove but they are spaced far enough apart not to be in your face. This poem also has a longer third and sixth line. Brilliant poetry.

[Glenny Palmer]

David, what a marvellous thread you have started here. What a confounded shame that I have been distracted so by worldly demands, to have seen it earlier.

I shall now risk my fiscal future by stating:

If I had my way I would flush all ‘pre-ordained’ judging sheets through the sewerage S-bends that so utterly complement their existence. We are required to evaluate beauty and lyricism…with a chisel and hammer, because….??

We are poets. We toss our precious words into the ether, and lovingly gather them into esoteric form… to then suffer seeing them bound in chains. Surely a global generic condition would suffice for written competitions, and so encourage the creative flexibility required for our craft’s progression? I have yet to see a ‘condition’ stating ‘essence’ as a criterion. The very first thing that strikes me when I am judging, is the essence of a poem; the type of indescribable connection that eg. Matt McLoughlin’s work conveys. It is nigh on impossible to accurately set a defined ‘score’ to such work.

‘‘I should wander, lost, bereft, in hypnotising barren sands’’ rather than try to approach evaluating any poetic piece, solely via these ‘score sheets.’ And yet I am bound to do so, and so do. (deep sigh)

Having waxed lyrical so far, I should also attend the practicalities. I constructed my Tutorial to offer the absolute basics of helpful techniques, because I believe if one has the fundamental tools to hand, they can then progress to applying mixed meter and subsequently enjoy the ‘flexibility and creativity’ of playing with that and with rhyme…in a structure that works! that the reader or judge can identify as having been crafted with skill. So I am not promoting totally ‘wild and reckless abandon’ but a measured approach that encompasses both.

Of the two poems you posted first up, I prefer the first, because of the intrinsic ‘essence’ of the piece…which, to me, is lost in the second example. IMO it should be able to qualify for a ‘Bush Poetry’ award. If we embraced a more generic construction code we may one day progress to such an outcome. However, in the interests of protecting my digestive system, I can not countenance applying the ABPA ‘rules’ to Mr Murray’s very clever ‘Cockspur Bush.’ So, coward that I may be, I must decline your kind offer to embark upon same.

I fear that my observations have cast little light upon your initial question, but hopefully do contribute somewhat to a more flexible and creative approach to our craft.