Writing Blog

20220419 On Poetry

April 19, 2022, 10:00am

In the USA, April is National Poetry Month.

Yay?

Poetry means different things to different people. I did three classes on poetry in my recent Bachelor of Arts (Creative Writing) degree and not one of the three lecturers – all published poets, all renowned in Australia – gave a definition of poetry except that it is “emotion put into words”. Can prose be poetry? They said yes, yes it can.

So, let’s be honest, I’m confused.

Now, I find a lot of modern poetry hard to get into and I would not recognise prose poetry if it bit me. I find some poets use so much metaphor and simile that I do not understand what the poet is trying to say.

And yet I’ve had 40 poems published. Most in the local paper (they do pay a little), a few in anthologies and one in a magazine.

So, what poetry do I like? I like the emotional poetry that really uses words well to give the poet’s feelings some concrete basis. My favourite poet in that vein is Sakshi Narula. I don’t mind Kate Tempest, but find she works better spoken, not read.

I love a good lyric, something becoming harder and harder to find in this day and age. Modern pop puts as much focus on lyrics as they do on using real instruments and letting natural voices shine through without computer jiggery pokery. Some are there, but nothing matches the lyrics from the late sixties through to mid-80s, with a brief flurry of intelligence in the mid-90s. So, good song lyrics are always there as wonderful poetry.

I like nonsense poetry – Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, John Lennon, et al. Using word-play, puns and the forced rhymes for comedic effect. I also like classic poetry, going back as far as Shakespeare, and including many of the Romantics and old British/English poetry.

But my favourite poetry is basically a rhyming story – Australian bush ballads especially. Exemplified by AB ‘Banjo’ Paterson, there were so many great ones.
The Man From Snowy River (https://allpoetry.com/The-Man-from-Snowy-River)
How McDougall Topped The Score (https://www.bushverse.com/thomas-e-spencer/how-mcdougall-topped-the-score/)
The Lights Of Cobb And Co. (https://www.bushverse.com/henry-lawson/the-lights-of-cobb-and-co/)
etc.

With a consistent rhyming scheme and a consistent syllable count to give constant rhythm, these poems are designed to be spoken. When read by some-one familiar with it, The Man From Snowy River has the rhythm of a horse’s galloping hooves, for example.

Most of my published poetry is based on comedy and the bush ballad style of rhyme. Not all, but most.

The problem I find with a lot of modern poets is that they try to be too clever and forget there is an audience. Writing for yourself is fine, I have no problem with that, but when that audience has to ask what something means, maybe you’re just trying too hard to be clever.

So, yeah – give me classic poetry or poetry in that style. Modern poetry… it ain’t for me.