Grand Gestures

The Blake Prize: Exploring the religious and spiritual in art.
“The aim of the Blake Society is to encourage contemporary artists to explore the spiritual in art. The Blake Society was formed at the instigation of a Jesuit priest, Michael Scott, a Jewish businessman, Richard Morley and a Catholic lawyer, Mary Tennison Woods. They hoped that the establishment of a prize would encourage artists of disparate styles and religious allegiances to create significant works of art with religious content. Today its members hope to stimulate the interaction of ideas and spiritual thought in contemporary Australian art” [www.blakeprize.com.au]


There is a prize given for art and a prize given for poetry.

I contemplate entering the poetry prize. Why? It makes no sense.

Because the truth is – I don’t really like poetry. I guess I’m not talking about Spike Milligan’s Silly Verse for Kids, or the bush poems of one of Australia’s favourite sons, Mr Banjo Paterson. Those I can understand, even if listening under duress, which was often the case when on every holiday at my grandparents, with a couple of whiskeys under his belt, and even later when suffering a bad case of dementia, Grandpa would recite the "Complete Works" of Paterson. He couldn’t remember where his room was, but by golly he could remember ‘The Man from Ironbark'.

I mean ‘real poetry’. And I’m not going to even try and define what I mean by ‘real poetry’. A quick search of the internet shows that the definition of poetry has been making literary boffins all hot and bothered for centuries or at least a real long time. So who am I to….. Suffice to say “. I knows what I mean and I knows what I like, so there…”

So should I give it a go anyway?

I read…well skimmed entries by last year’s prize winner, highly commended and shortlisted. It did not bode well when I had to look up the definition of a word in the title of the prize winning poem, and then after reading the first part, I had to Google the person referenced in it and a couple of keywords later, I discover that the poem is actually referring to a particular painting. The poem then made more sense, but I would have remained mystified without Mr Google. And even though I’m alone, I blush at my ignorance, and wonder then if this is something I “should” have known by now, and if not knowing was further evidence of my arrested mental development and less than rounded life experience.

Poetry is like abstract art. It can leave you bewildered and confused, or it can leave you enchanted and confused, but you are not really sure why, just as you are not sure why an art critic can call one piece of art - a triumph, and another similar piece ‘ordinary. I don’t know the difference. I don’t dislike all abstract art. I like patterns, if the lines seem like someone put them there with purpose, or simply if the colours and shapes please me. But I can’t tell you if it’s good or bad. Poetry does the same thing to me. Someone can show me a poem and laugh derisively and call it ‘bad’ poetry. Haw Haw..I laugh along with them, and then they’ll show me a poem which is simply incomprehensible to my feeble brain and solemnly tell me it’s brilliant. And I nod solemnly as well. But I don’t really know why one is good and one is bad.

Poetry can be intensely structured, a story evident within the words, but with a tendency to use words, images and references which assume a prior knowledge of say art, literature, history or mythology. Or poetry can be free form and have no comforting patterns or lines, again using words and images that I cannot connect to my own experience of the world. I don’t have the sensitivity or patience to work it out.

And here I have the audacity to think I can submit a poem. Me! Who has just confessed neither understanding nor even liking poetry. Unfortunately I told someone I might submit a poem – for the experience only you understand. And they seized on that idea with enthusiasm and encouragement - as if I’m actually going to go through with it. Ha! They know me better that that!! I always make pronouncements which I will never carry through.

I don’t know what has got into me this year because I have also proclaimed that I am going to enter the Dobell Drawing Prize. Huh?! Me! - who’s only art work consists of drawing shapes and colouring them in as a self prescribed treatment for my self diagnosed mental illness.
I said this to one of my companions as we viewed this year’s shortlisted entries at the NSW Art Gallery. The winner was Tsunami’ by Pam Hallandal.

An art critic from the Sydney Morning Herald commented…..

What I don't like - what I would politely drop through a crack in the gallery floor - is the sweet, the safe, the inoffensive, the trite, the obvious, the club bore, however academically acceptable and box-ticked. Pam Hallandal's Dobell winner Tsunami, for one. Sad but true. Good causes don't make good art. [E. Farrally SMH 6 January 2010]

Well personally I would probably tick all the boxes - inoffensive, trite, obvious and a bore so of course I liked it. Not from any intellectual viewpoint, probably more from the “Wow – it’s really big, and I like its circle shape and it looks very accomplished” school of thought. Some of the other finalists left me furrow browed and uncomprehending as to why they would be selected as finalists at all. And that is when I blithely stated that “I could do much better and I make no claim to even being an artist but ‘scoff’ it didn’t stop THAT person…hohohoho”.

Where is this crap coming from?!!

So to sum it up I’ve told people that I’m going to enter the prestigious Blake Prize for Poetry and the most respected award for drawing in Australia. So I suppose I better go to the library right now and borrow some book on how to write a poem and how to draw.