Bruce Dawes and the General Public

The art of poetry has rarely been able to traverse from the realm of the academic to the scope of an everyman, and for good reason, one can say, if one considers its reputation for being complex and, to put it bluntly, boring. Of course, some poets, for example Bruce Dawe, deliberately write using the language of the general public, as to dispel what Dawe himself calls “’the Byronic Wildean archetype’, the image of the poet as an extraordinary and alienated person”1. Poetry often expresses the problems and views of suppressed or underprivileged groups, and when put in the vernacular of the public, as much of Dawe’s poetry is, it serves to create a voice for people whose tales are so often ignored by the masses. The ballad known as “Homecoming” and the satirical, deadpan diagnosis of “Doctor to Patient” are both examples of how Dawe has been able to make his poetry both challenging to its readership’s perceptions of youth, their shared focus group. He has not sacrificed any poetic devices in bringing his poetry to the public, however, and frequently calls to order numerous techniques to put across his views in these two poems.

The tonality of Dawe’s poetry is often very clear in is writing style, which is invaluable in generating an emotional response from the reader, being able to position the reader and highlight points of view other to their own. “Homecoming” makes use of two distinct tones through its course, initially having an impersonal and monotonous manner, feeling like the moaning of a disgruntled worker in a dissatisfactory job. It comes about through the repetition of “they’re”, such as (“they’re) bringing them home… giving them names… zipping them up”, firmly placing the reader over the shoulder of the would-be morticians and separating the dead soldiers, making them sound as if they are mere objects “in green plastic bags”. This changes radically, however, after the corpses are directly described, “curly-heads, kinky hairs, crew cuts, balding

References: 1. Rowe, N, Much More You Could Say: Bruce Dawe’s poetry (2004), p2. Retrieved 21:48, April 26, 2012, from http://escholarship.usyd.edu.au/journals/index.php/SSE/article/viewfile/533/504 2. Brennan, B, Poetry and Politics: In conflict or conversation? Aboriginal poetry, Peter Skrzynecki, and Bruce Dawe (2002), p17. Retrieved 19:26, April 23, 2012, from http://ojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/view/567/536 3. Rowe, N, Much More You Could Say: Bruce Dawe’s poetry (2004), p11. Retrieved 21:48, April 26, 2012, from http://escholarship.usyd.edu.au/journals/index.php/SSE/article/viewfile/533/504 4. Anodyne, in Dictoinary.com. Retrieved 16:44, April 29, 2012, from http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/anodyne?s=t 5. Brennan, B, Poetry and Politics: In conflict or conversation? Aboriginal poetry, Peter Skrzynecki, and Bruce Dawe (2002), p18. Retrieved 19:26, April 23, 2012, from http://ojs-prod.library.usyd.edu.au/index.php/SSE/article/view/567/536