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WIMMERA performers are lending their talents to the Horsham Country Music Festival this weekend.
Horsham’s Don Mitchell, alongside Haven’s John Smith, are among the line-up and will be performing Australian poetry together when they take to Roberts Place on Friday.
Mr Mitchell said his performance was quite different when compared to the Horsham Country Music Festival line-up.
He said their performance was the only one where they used only their voice as a poet.
“We are performing Australian poetry, which is distinct from a lot of the other performers who are mostly instrumental or vocals,” he said.
Mr Mitchell said the audience can expect older poems from him.
“My memory is now challenging me in my mature years, but the old stuff I remember and enjoy doing that more rather than taking on the new stuff and challenges,” he said.
His favourite poem to perform was blokes are born to shop, which he will be reciting on Friday.
“It is a humorous expose on how men feel in the supermarket,” he said.
Mr Mitchell said his passion for bush poetry came from the humorous slant to poems, which brings laughter to the people who hear his performance.
“I like performing Australian bush poetry because it has a humorous slant to it and making people laugh is part of the enjoyment,” he said.
However, he said his older poems can be difficult for the younger generation to understand.
“There are older poems which people might not understand with jokes about shearers and rural things like that. Young people, unless they are hardcore farmers, won’t realise jokes about stock, sheep and the land. Older people thoroughly enjoy it because they remember those days,” he said.
While Mr Mitchell is a bush poet and not a “hardcore country music follower,” he believed the Horsham Country Music Festival was a great source of entertainment for the community.
“We as participants are furthering the entertainment for the community and it provides a vehicle for the community to enjoy themselves,” he said.