Backblock ballads

Clarence James Dennis was born at Auburn in 1876, son of a publican and his Irish wife. Mrs Dennis died when her three sons were still young, and they were then cared for by their mother's two single sisters. Dennis spent most of his young years at Laura, where his father ran the Beetaloo Hotel. His first poems were published in the Laura standard newspaper. Completing his education at Christian Brothers College in Adelaide, he went to work first for a lawyer at Laura, and then briefly on the staff of the Critic newspaper in Adelaide. Dennis left and travelled to Broken Hill for a time, but was back on the Critic staff by 1901, where he rose to become editor. In 1906, with five others, he established the Gadfly, a weekly satirical newspaper. The Gadfly included much of Dennis' poetry, although he had also been contributing to the Bulletin since 1903.

Dennis left the Gadfly and Adelaide in 1907, to try his luck in Melbourne. With little work, he was taken to Toolangi by a friend, and here in the Victorian countryside he compiled his first collection of poetry, Backblock ballads and other verses. Published in 1913, this included the first of Dennis' poems to attract critical attention, The Austra-laise, which Dennis had written as a joke on the editor of the Bulletin's Red Page in 1908. The joke had in fact won a prize. But in particular the collection included four rhymes under the title The sentimental bloke.

In 1915, during the First World War, a collection of poems was published as Songs of a sentimental bloke and was an overnight success, selling 55,000 copies in its first year. Through it Dennis became Australia's best known poet. Pocket editions for soldiers were the first of this type produced in Australia. A year later, The moods of Ginger Mick were another overnight success, with 42,000 copies sold in less than six months. In 1919 Songs of a sentimental bloke was made into a silent film.

Dennis went on to produce other collections of poetry about the Bloke and Doreen, as well as A Book for Kids. For many years he wrote regular columns for the Herald, including his popular Ben Bowyang letter.