Post
by David Campbell » Fri Nov 07, 2014 1:37 pm
It may well be a can of worms, Stephen and Marty, but it’s a debate worth having…not only because it might be alienating aspiring young writers, but because it can create problems for judges. I hope the awarded writers in the Ipswich bush poetry section won’t mind if I use their poems as discussion points.
Take, for example, Brenda and Kevin’s poems, which are both about catastrophic floods. Kevin’s “How Long Will We Cry?” clearly identifies the location…Queensland’s Lockyer Valley, with mention of Bundaberg and Brisbane. But Brenda’s “In the Wake of the Deluge” doesn’t. It’s presumably about the same disaster, but apart from passing references to the “Bridge of Death” and “twin cities” there’s nothing which clearly identifies the poem as particularly Australian to a judge unfamiliar with what happened. Does that make it less of a poem? Of course not. But a judge lacking local knowledge might argue that it could be set anywhere in the world and hence didn’t satisfy the bush poetry definition.
That’s the problem. What makes a poem identifiably Australian? Other awarded Ipswich poems have clear Australian references (swagman, stolen generation, stockman, convict, Anzac), but Susan Sommerland’s “The Property”, while very rural in its setting, is a universal lament about death.
So what makes a poem Australian? Here’s how another bush poet defined to me the things that should NOT be considered bush poetry, in fact we should “vigorously resist” them:
“Poetry about life in general, e.g. things that happen during our lifetimes, such as a loved one’s debilitating illness, our fathers fighting in wars, (where Australian is not mentioned or inferred) and daily problems – personal and mechanical.”
Confused? I am.
Cheers
David