Continuing on from a discussion tangent that arose in Serious Critique/ admin

Slight change of subject. Did you say that you liked Banjo Paterson (sp?) Poemfinder sent me a poem/tale of his about a barber who cuts a man's throat (as a joke!) etc. etc......it didn't seem to be a particularly noteworthy piece of poetry. It sounded like the kind of stuff I can write without breaking into a sweat.

If he was posting on here I would have a hard job finding anything very positive to say about his verse.

Sorry - I've just realised that this isn't appropriate to your thread. So, no worries - I can ask you again on Discussion or whatever.

Think of the people Banjo was writing for, and the time. It was just after Federation and he was helping to build an Australian identity, one rich with heroes and larrikins that the common man could relate to, now that we'd given Britain the arse (well, half-arse anyway) and had a relatively class-free society, which at the time was reasonably close to a meritocracy. No romances about lords and ladies mooning about in fancy clothes were going to cut it in Australia -- and as the population was sparse, so education was a difficult prospect, they needed ballads with rich meter and rhyme as mnemonics to create a new "tradition". It is the simplicity that is their greatest virtue. No, the form is not difficult to write -- but then, I don't consider any form particularly difficult. It's the yarn, the mood and the characters that are important.

I'll do a copy paste and shift this to the Poetry Discussion forum though.

"I don't consider any form particularly difficult" well maybe you don't but I do....
If I were to write story-telling ballads they would go from the brain to the page/screen in an instant (well, with a minimum of tweaking) but, to write something like Eight Movements would take me weeks and weeks.
And the end result would be sadly lacking.

Aha - I see the flaw in my argument. I'm not a gifted poet. You are. (yes, you are, so don't argue) and he was (well, you are telling me he was)

Somewhere on my bookcases I have a book of Australian poetry - I will seek it out and have a good read.

I just caution against writing something off because it seems simple on the surface

You're right, to write a story-telling ballad is not -- at first glance -- a difficult endeavour. Then again, it's not technically difficult to write a short story, or prose. It's also not technically difficult to cook a steak, but look at how many people bugger that up However, to write a poem that not only endures but is beloved... well, that's something very few of us will ever achieve.

(12-05-2011, 05:35 AM)grannyjill Wrote:  Did you say that you liked Banjo Paterson (sp?) Poemfinder sent me a poem/tale of his about a barber who cuts a man's throat (as a joke!) etc. etc......it didn't seem to be a particularly noteworthy piece of poetry. It sounded like the kind of stuff I can write without breaking into a sweat.

If he was posting on here I would have a hard job finding anything very positive to say about his verse.

It sounds like you're suggesting poets should avoid ugly subjects. Or, at least, that any such efforts will inevitably fall short of mediocrity.

I think that's wrong. There are, always have been and always will be people in the world who commit acts of violence for their own pleasure. That being the case, I think poets are as justifed in exploring that aspect of life as they are in addressing clouds floating on high.

As for having "a hard job finding anything very positive to say about his verse" presumably you could manage a few kind words about Hamlet--which seethes with treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption.

I don't know the poem in question (or even the title, which I'd google if anyone would share it) and I'm not claiming Patterson is on a par with Shakespeare but he is a recognised poet. I'm sure the poem can't be totally lacking in any merit.

Hi, Touchstone, I didn't explain myself properly because...this came from a dialogue with Leanne (whom I presumed would know the poem in its entirety so I didn't elaborate) - the subject matter was not the issue.

No it was simply a ballad executed in a very simple way, which told of a frontier town incident- the verse was called The Man from Ironbark -Banjo Paterson.

Have a read. See what you think

Incidentally, he didn't actually cut the man's throat -- it was a city man playing a trick on a country yokel by "slashing" him across the throat with the back of a red-hot razor

It's a comic poem which highlights the mistrust that country folk have of the city "sophisticates". Hardly a frontier town, by the way, it's set in Sydney!

I have added The Man From Ironbark to our reference section.

Oh, be fair - I read it on my mobile phone quickly and then deleted it (as I do with all the poems Poemhunter sends me)....and I didn't get that it was a trick....it read to me as if he did cut his throat but not deeply enough to kill him. But, as I said it was only a quick read.

But, the subject of the ballad wasn't a problem for me. What puzzles me, with this and a good deal of the other famous poems that I read is that they are nothing special. I've seen much better poetry here on pigpen....so why aren't you all famous?

Meaning absolutely no disrespect to any poet who posts online -- but we are mere journeymen, writing with the benefit of having the works of the masters at our fingertips to inspire us and give us styles to emulate. Poems become famous for a number of reasons, but most often because they tap into the consciousness of a nation or situation and manage to perfectly communicate the thoughts of the many. This is not to say that famous poems are Hallmark lowest-common-denominator stuff -- often we read them and say to ourselves, "I know exactly what he means but there's no way I'd have thought to put it that way myself".

We are very lucky to be writing poems into an already incalculably huge volume of poetry. Perhaps "nothing special" is a symptom of familiarity breeding contempt, and against the number of poems that have since emulated the style of those famous it's not really surprising that they might seem mundane and unoriginal. The reverse is true, however -- it is not the famous poem that should be deemed "nothing special", but all those that follow after.

And "better poetry" might just as easily translate into "more familiar". It's not really possible to properly appreciate a poem after one quick reading -- I very rarely comment on poems posted here until I've let them sink in for a while to make sure that my first opinion was not just coloured by preference or mood. When I first read Blake in school, I hated him -- I thought his poems were far too simple, very rigid and a little bit pompous. I was very impressed with obscurism as a teenager

OK, read it now.

I don't actually read much poetry (tbh, the occasional post on here is the full extent) so I don't hold myself out as an expert and I'm well aware that what I'm about to type is somewhat contradictory but anyway, think of me as being like an onion.

1. Great artists make things look easy. Maybe you could write something as good as that, I don't know. I do know that I couldn't.

2. Greatness in art is subjective and, to a degree, subject to considerable pretension. Lets not forget that this: is apparently the greatest painting the world has ever seen. [And, unlike writing a ballad poem, I could easily vomit on a blanket. But nobody would pay me $140,000,000 for my efforts.] So just because some people say something is a great poem doesn't mean it's a great poem. Maybe it was one of his lesser works, rattled off at the end of a 3 day bender.

"3 day bender" -- pfft! Think he was some Pommie lightweight? :p He'd have been out for a week at least.

"Great artists make things look easy" -- truer words were never spoken. How many people look at a Picasso and say "I could have painted that myself"? The point is, they didn't.

Whether or not it is 'high art', it is written with a smile, and gives a smile. No doubt it is not as easy to put to-gether as at first appears, if only because of extra rhymes in the ist and third lines.

Poetry is different, and comes from different places. It has the popular appeal of Kipling in his day (and now, with that 'If..'), and folk of that class. It does not profit a person to compare it with, say, Ted Hughes or Ezra Pound, whether one likes them or him, or not. Just different. I suppose there must be recordings by him?

PS How do you pronounce his name? Patt, or Pate?

Just clarify something for me...is that particular poem generally regarded as a masterpiece? Or one of his better works? Or is it just a poem which he just happened to have written at some point? Chart topping single or album filler in other words?

As a layman (and I suspect that actually makes me more the audience he was writing for than any of you lot who actually know what you're talking about) I think it's a decent work. I managed to read it without getting bored halfway through. And it tells a little story with a few nice phrases. I don't consider it a waste of the few minutes it took me to read and reflect on but I wouldn't say it was great though.

Masterpiece, no. For the most part, Australians know only a few lines of it -- one naturally being "Murder! Bloody murder!", which we would yell at the top of our voices while reciting at school and thought that the teachers (especially the nuns!) would keel over from shock. They didn't

What is most beloved about Banjo and his fellow "national poet" Henry Lawson is the characters. "The Man from Ironbark" passed very quickly into our (relatively new) pantheon of folk heroes, as did Clancy of the Overflow (which poem, by the way, is considered a masterpiece, along with The Man From Snowy River). In this, they're not so different from Tam O'Shanter -- who knows all of that? -- or even Paris, Helen and the Trojan gang.

The basic rule is, the lighter the subject the simpler the style. This is not always true, of course, and often a light subject/style can mask much deeper things, but there's no point in writing a joke that hardly anyone can understand.

Patt -- I've never heard, or heard of, any recordings by him but it's always possible I suppose. I shall investigate

i think a lot of irish and scots folk songs are the same in that they inspire a cultural collective of us v them. songs and verse that are particular to a region yet are universally known. from my pub experiences the main criteria is that they be sung with as much loudness as possible when you get to the chorus. whiskey in the jar being a generic pub song. (not quite the same and man from snowy river). for the main many would say rubbish works but as was pointed out, they withstood the test of time and were infectious enough to cross borders and in doing so become a part of that heritage we call folk. jmo.

god bless mulga bill.
and thanks for him and the others up.
i think he's as good as most poets and better than many.
he can't be compared to frost or pound of course
though he's better read than benny.

seriously. i doubt they could write as good as paterson in this genre. i think abu had it right about kip's if and even more in the style of gunga din. (kipling's one of fave poets come writers) i think some of his ballads could compete with patersons but paterson has his own uniqueness. it's really all chalk and cheese i think. i have enjoyed reading the one Leanne put up

I am glad I sparked off this discussion. I've read an awful lot of poetry - good, bad and indifferent (and a lot of it I am unable to assess fairly because it isn't to my taste...something Leanne touched on in another thread)..But, I do think that well-known poets of the likes of Keats and Wordsworth wrote wonderful pieces, but when I've delved deeper and read more of their work they havent been able to reach the heights all the time... if they were us- no one would consider printing the duds. They seem immune once they've established themselves. (Mind you....arguing against myself here - I don't know how all of their work was received at point of first printing)

i would think many of them came to fame gradually.
plus the population was smaller so thy'ed stand out a lot more than they would now.
once royalty had touched them they became the cream cheese of upper classes.
most were pretty well educated with nothing better to do. i suspect.

(12-07-2011, 07:32 PM)grannyjill Wrote:  ...I don't know how all of their work was received at point of first printing)

That might make a whole new topic in its own right.

Some poets are heralded in their own lifetimes, some aren't recognised until much later. [OK, I don't actually know that, but I do know that sometimes happens with painters and I'm assuming it also happens to poets.]

Why is that? Obviously nothing objective has changed in the work. Only the way a majority (or elite vocal minority) happens to perceive it.

And what does that mean? Were they great or were they not or is the whole concept of greatness simply a transitory and abstract concept?