From: "Andrew Burke" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, August 26, 2005 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: each to their own
> Funny you should emtnion your 'frustrated musician' story. Same here. I
> was
> a drummer as a youth for a very short while. I have found that the
> majority
> of Australian poets have at least tried playing music sometime in their
> life
> ... interestingly enough, not Les Murray (but his wife's a huge opera
> fan).
> Tom Shapcott, Geoff Page, Fay Zwicky, Dorothy Hewett ... on and on.
> Interesting.
>
> Any other frustrated, or even unfrustrated, musos who have become poets
> out
> there?
Oh lor', yes! I thought I was going to be a serious composer! Actually took
some training, aged around 18-20, which did at least allow me to find out
for myself that I hadn't got what it would take. But those lessons taught me
a huge amount that has been immensely useful in poetry, things about form,
balance, texture, etc, and above all to listen properly. I was writing
poetry all that time, but not taking it seriously because it was still at
the stage where if it didn't fall clean off the pen I didn't bother with
it -- working at it as I'd tried to do with string quartets and such came
quite a bit later.
joanna
|