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Cumulus: Collected Poems
- GenresPoetry
346 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
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12 people want to read
About the author
Robert Gray
23 books2 followersRobert William Geoffrey Gray (born 23 February 1945) is an Australian poet, freelance writer, and critic. He has been described as 'an Imagist without a rival in the English speaking world' and 'one of the contemporary masters of poetry in English'.
Gray was born in Port Macquarie, grew up in Coffs Harbour and was educated in a country town on the north coast of New South Wales. He trained there as a journalist, and since then has worked in Sydney as an editor, advertising copywriter, reviewer and buyer for bookshops. His first book of poems, Creekwater Journal, was published in 1973.
As a poet Gray is most notable for his keen visual imagery and intensely observed landscapes. His wide reading in and experience of East Asian cultures and their varieties of Buddhism is clear in many of the themes and forms he chooses to work in, including, for example haiku-style free verse works. Gray's essentially Australian response to nature is reinforced by what he sees as a commonsensical Eastern view of man as within nature rather than an agent removable from, and capable of controlling nature. Martin Langford has written that Gray's poetry captures the Australian ambivalence towards their own landscapes. 'No-one captures better that dual sense of our fascination with the physical world, and our dismay at its indifference.'
Gray has been a writer-in-residence at Meiji University in Tokyo and at several universities throughout Australia including Geelong College in 1982. From February–March 2012, Gray lectured at Campion College in New South Wales.
He has won numerous awards including the Adelaide Arts Festival award and the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers' awards for poetry. In 1990 he received the Patrick White Award.
With Geoffrey Lehmann, he edited two anthologies, The Younger Australian Poets and Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century, and he is the editor of Selected Poems by Shaw Neilson, and Drawn from Life, the journals of the painter John Olsen. 2008 saw the much anticipated publication of his memoir, The Land I Came Through Last.
In 2012 his collected poems was published under the title Cumulus. As with each of his poetic publications, it includes all that Gray wishes to preserve of his earlier poetry and many newer poems.
LCCN permalink: http://lccn.loc.gov/n83238006
Gray, Robert, |d 1945-
The Younger Australian poets, c1983: t.p. (Robert Gray)
LC data base, 12/6/83 - (hdg.: Gray, Robert, 1945- )
Gray was born in Port Macquarie, grew up in Coffs Harbour and was educated in a country town on the north coast of New South Wales. He trained there as a journalist, and since then has worked in Sydney as an editor, advertising copywriter, reviewer and buyer for bookshops. His first book of poems, Creekwater Journal, was published in 1973.
As a poet Gray is most notable for his keen visual imagery and intensely observed landscapes. His wide reading in and experience of East Asian cultures and their varieties of Buddhism is clear in many of the themes and forms he chooses to work in, including, for example haiku-style free verse works. Gray's essentially Australian response to nature is reinforced by what he sees as a commonsensical Eastern view of man as within nature rather than an agent removable from, and capable of controlling nature. Martin Langford has written that Gray's poetry captures the Australian ambivalence towards their own landscapes. 'No-one captures better that dual sense of our fascination with the physical world, and our dismay at its indifference.'
Gray has been a writer-in-residence at Meiji University in Tokyo and at several universities throughout Australia including Geelong College in 1982. From February–March 2012, Gray lectured at Campion College in New South Wales.
He has won numerous awards including the Adelaide Arts Festival award and the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers' awards for poetry. In 1990 he received the Patrick White Award.
With Geoffrey Lehmann, he edited two anthologies, The Younger Australian Poets and Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century, and he is the editor of Selected Poems by Shaw Neilson, and Drawn from Life, the journals of the painter John Olsen. 2008 saw the much anticipated publication of his memoir, The Land I Came Through Last.
In 2012 his collected poems was published under the title Cumulus. As with each of his poetic publications, it includes all that Gray wishes to preserve of his earlier poetry and many newer poems.
LCCN permalink: http://lccn.loc.gov/n83238006
Gray, Robert, |d 1945-
The Younger Australian poets, c1983: t.p. (Robert Gray)
LC data base, 12/6/83 - (hdg.: Gray, Robert, 1945- )
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 23, 2020
pretty good but robert writes too many poems about titties of random women. yes it almost took me 3 months because the hsc is giving me mad committmet issues
December 28, 2019
Poetry that surprised, extended and captivated. One I will return to often.
October 31, 2016
I don't read many complete poetry anthologies, maybe one or two per year. I decided to read this one after one of my students had Robert Gray prescribed for the HSC next year. Reading it was well worthwhile in this instance. I haven't studied or taught Gray before and reading 'Cumulus' all the way through gave me a good overview of the body of his life's work, right from the start. I enjoyed many of these poems, and several that I didn't like I could appreciate as challenging, skilful and provocative. I don't share all of Gray's views, which he makes clear in a small number of poems, but it was interesting to see how his position developed or matured over the course of his life. That said, this wasn't always certain, since in this volume he has revised many of his poems, making substantial changes to them, including all those prescribed for the HSC. So if you are thinking of buying it for the purpose of teaching from it - don't. The Board of Studies has prescribed an early edition of his poems which is out of print and almost impossible to buy second hand. Try a library.
Gray is a good example of an imagist and his visual imagery is powerful and effective. Recurring imagery and motifs include train travel, night, dark/light and rain. I liked his philosophical reflections (both Eastern and Western) and intertextuality. His autobiographical poems, especially those concerning his family and main relationships, were notable.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews