Rhyme and reason behind outback bush poetry prize

That's the sentiment writer David Campbell often hears from critics of traditional bush poetry.

"They regard it as old hat and out of date. They often dismiss it and say, 'it's just doggerel'," he told AAP.

Addressing those critics, in rhyming verse no less, earned him the first $10,000 Cloncurry Prize Poetry Competition award in 2021, one of the country's richest prizes for a single piece of poetry.

His poem, The Heart and Soul of Australia, honoured the virtues of the classic storytellers in an ode to outback medics working in a landscape scarred by climate change and colonisation.

"Poetry can communicate in ways that straight prose can't," Campbell said from his home on Victoria's Great Ocean Road.

"Rhyming verse can be more easily remembered, it tends to stay in the mind just as songs do. I use it to say something I hope will resonate."

Entries for the third Cloncurry prize are open until May 1, inviting writers from around Australia to reflect on the theme of outback heroes in any style of poetry.

Cloncurry mayor Greg Campbell launched the prize to show there's more to outback Australia than heavy industry.

"It's like the movie The Hunger Games that portrays the regions in grey, just working for the city, then flips to the city with people in their mad bright clothes and hairstyles," he said.

"It feels like that sometimes, that the regions are just the workhorse of the country. We should be able to have more than just work."

The prize is inspired by writer Dame Mary Gilmore, who is buried in Cloncurry, and it allows contemporary and bush poets to dream about life in the outback.

Cr Campbell was born and grew up in Cloncurry, which is near Mount Isa in Queensland's northwest, and he can't hide his enthusiasm for the outback.

"Just now I had two Cloncurry parrots sitting on my fence," he said as a bird trilled in the background.

"We've got half a dozen magpies that have hatched nearby. We get kangaroos and wallabies on our lawn every morning.

"The kids start school at 20 past eight, we leave home at 18 past eight."

David Campbell takes his inspiration from the quiet of the Victorian seaside, far from the bush.

His award-winning poems variously deal with Indigenous reconciliation, the environment and family.

"A lot of people expect bush poetry to be about shearing and cattle ... and quite a bit of it does deal with that," he said.

"But my interest has always been writing about contemporary events, rather than using historical references.

"Poets like Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, and CJ Dennis wrote about the events of their time."

The Cloncurry poetry prize winner will be announced in June.

Australian Associated Press