Poem of the Month - October 2010

A long time ago (well around 20 years at least) when I was 'learning' to write poetry our teacher asked us to write a parody of another 'well known' poem. I don't quite remember what the point of this exercise was, except that maybe it is similar to how many art schools make students copy the great artists before they are allowed to paint what they like.

This is not a good thing, in many ways, and probably the main reason why we see so many bad attempts at Monet's Waterlilies, Boticelli-style cherubs, even cans of soup a la Warhol. I suppose there are valid reasons for this. I am not a fan of getting students of any kind to attempt copies of other work - art, and poetry, should be new and different, each piece telling a new story, or at least an old story in a new way.

Wondering what to provide as October's poem however has had me a bit stumped. Other writing currently underway has not allowed for much creativity. the weather hasn't helped. Like many other Melbournians, many of whom have obviously chosen October to get married (if the number of wedding photo shoots we witnessed in the city and Dandenongs last week is anything to go by), I am well and truly over the cold and windy Melbourne winter that still refuses to give way to spring.

So while it is old, and a kind of copycat poem, this is my offering for this month. Do you know who wrote the original, and what it was called?

One-eyed Beauty

(or "Melbourne in Winter")

Glory be for life in monochrome;
For skies of many-layered gristle-grey;
The season when any sensible living thing
Will try to find a way to stay at home;
Landscape potholed and plaintive - foul, frazzled and clay.
And tradesmen will need for their supper to sing,
For no-one will have work for them to do;
Whatever is boring, bogged-down (who knows why?)
But when in silent stupor, snorers sleepily bring
Themselves out of hibernation - winter's through:

Thank God.

 1991