We’ve been over this ground before. For example, back in February Vic wrote: “…the people didn't get sick of poetry, they simply rejected the nonsense that the literati and "modern" poets tried to serve up as poetry. I am firmly convinced when someone like a Sassoon, Brooke, Kipling, Paterson or Lawson emerge they will be thoroughly acclaimed and just as popular. We do not have a current Australian Poet Laureate, but when he/she does arrive, it will be because the people appoint and accept him or her.”
Anyway, taking up Vic's point in this thread, I’m happy to play devil’s advocate again and argue that if TMFSR was first published today it would barely cause a ripple outside the bush poetry community. What interest would our coastal-fringe city-dwellers have in the tale of a horseman who rounds up a mob of brumbies in the high country? Why would women want to know about what is essentially a macho male hero-fantasy? What relevance does it have to all our ethnic communities…Italian, Greek, Lebanese, Chinese, Sudanese, Vietnamese etc?
Given the much-discussed difficulty of getting bush poetry into the public arena, exactly how would “the people” hear about it and rise up in support of this new poetic champion?
And, just to hammer the point home, I reckon our own Graham Fredriksen was a much better poet than Paterson. Graham wrote on a broader range of topics, with more depth, skill, versatility, perception and emotion. His
The Only War We Had (for example) leaves TMFSR looking like a bit of lightweight romantic fluff.
Graham started writing and publishing almost 20 years ago, so why isn’t his poetry memorised in schools, quoted in speeches, and widely represented in a range of books and magazines? After all, TMFSR became well-known without the all-pervasive help of TV, radio, or the internet, so why have “the people”, using all our modern technology, not made Graham’s poetry universally popular in Australia, and acknowledged overseas?
Today, Banjo Paterson is merely the Paris Hilton of Australian poetry…famous for being famous.
So there’s something to chew over as we pop champagne corks and spend millions of dollars on fireworks to celebrate the transition from one artificial insignificant minute to another artificial insignificant minute!
Cheers
David
PS: With regard to Marty's reference to the Michael Farrell poem, Gregory Day calls it the "standout" poem in the anthology and spends quite some time discussing its merits. It's free verse, so I won't post it here, but if anyone's interested in reading it (
A Lyrebird) just pm me.