Jan Morris, Naomi Duff, Liz Dorsett, Bruce Clark and Tony Lambides-Turner
The Baw Baw Community’s
By Wendy Morriss
The Baw Baw Poetry group established in 2014, is a diverse group of people who thoroughly enjoy getting together to read, recite, perform or listen to all forms and types of poetry, including ballads. Founding member and organiser of the group, Liz Dorsett said it’s quite an informal group and it’s growing. They currently have more than 50 members with about 12 people meeting regularly. This includes people from The Henry Lawson Society and the Gippsland Bush Poets group based in Rosedale. The BBPG also has links with The CJ Dennis Society and The Australian Bush Poets Association, based in Corryong. “We haven’t really had the need to be formal,” Liz said. “The idea is to bring people together and we welcome everyone. We link with other groups like the Baw Baw Writers Network and the Baw Baw Arts Alliance and they are there if we ever need an auspice for funding. We don’t all need to be independently incorporated and for a low-risk activity like poetry it doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
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The group’s biggest event of the year is Drouin Ficifolia Festival’s Ficfest Annual Poetry Night, which will be held on Friday the 10th of February at the Old Drouin Butter Factory. “We usually get about a hundred people but we’d like to attract a few more,” Liz said.
“It’s a great night, it has a local flavour and whilst it’s organised, there’s room for flexibility and improvisation. We have local people who stand up and read, recite or perform their own poetry and that usually goes down really well because they’re often telling local stories. There have been some real classics like ‘The Shire Engineer’ by Jim Connelly, who is part of our network. It’s a very humorous poem that reflects a whole lot of things that came to the public’s notice last year. We also have a star attraction and this year it’s Eaglehawk bush poet and balladeer, Geoffrey Graham.”
Liz said the group have recently enjoyed doing pop up poetry at venues, events and festivals. “We’ve performed and recited poems at the Walhalla Easter Show, The Jindivick Flower Show, Drouin Probus Club, The Red Tree Gallery in Jindivick and out in the hills near Ferndale. We recited a few poems at an AGM for one of the community groups there and they said the tone of the meeting changed afterwards. Other people got up and shared poems they knew and then the meeting went on in a much friendlier and more connected way. “It’s interesting how poetry can actually be quite a meditating and freeing thing to do whether you write your own, recite other people’s, read it, perform it or just listen to it and we have members who do all of those things as well as some who turn poems into ballads.” Jan Morris is a member of The Henry Lawson Society and reads poetry in aged care homes. Tony Lambides-Turner, who writes and recites poems, is the former president of The Henry