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Kenneth Slessor: Collected Poems
Kenneth Slessor's Collected Poems brings together for the first time the diverse poetic achievement of one of Australia's finest and most accomplished poets. Slessor's work takes the reader on an imaginative journey from the satiric to the lyrical, from the tragic to the light-hearted, from the back streets of Sydney to the battlefields of World War II.
These are poems rich with image and intelligence, flooded with a heightened sensory awareness and a strong power of rhythm, music and sound in language. Collected Poems reveals the range, power and flexibility of this exceptional poet, and the comprehensive notes in this edition make his work fully accessible.
These are poems rich with image and intelligence, flooded with a heightened sensory awareness and a strong power of rhythm, music and sound in language. Collected Poems reveals the range, power and flexibility of this exceptional poet, and the comprehensive notes in this edition make his work fully accessible.
497 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 25, 2024
Kenneth, I once hated you deeply. You have now irrevocably changed my perspective on love and darkness and that is just about as deep as it gets.
"Should the girl's eyes be lit with swimming fire, O do not kiss it away, it is a star, a star!" - so real of you Kenneth.
But I hate some of what you write so also you will never get full stars [pun intended].
"Should the girl's eyes be lit with swimming fire, O do not kiss it away, it is a star, a star!" - so real of you Kenneth.
But I hate some of what you write so also you will never get full stars [pun intended].
March 4, 2019
Not feeling these poems. Not quite sure why. He is writing about beauty, but it doesn't feel like beauty - if that makes sense.
February 3, 2021
Writing in a strangely detached, experimental and postmodern style - one that nevertheless remains engrossing and infectiously curious if given the time to be warmed up to - Slessor's poetry is a sure recommend if you have some time to kill by getting a little existential.
If you truly want to see how enjoyable his poetry is to analyse, and the amount of mental inspiration his associations give, enjoy my short analysis of one of his poems: 'Stars.'
Slessor’s short poem ‘Stars,’ discusses the seemingly paradoxical approaches of two characters to these radiant natural phenomena, efficaciously evoking a balanced existential debate in the reader; a reader who’s reinvigorated contradicting views are emphasised with the revealed failings of every employed ideology.
Opening with the bold, emphasised word, “THESE”, the author sets a precedent for the stars’ essential role in ascertaining an understanding of the poem; however, but not explicitly mentioning the stars themselves, an uncomfortable, nebulous atmosphere of uncertainty and interpretation is established. Following this, the explicitly “romantic” poet celebrates these earthly, warm, tangible “floating berries of the night” as surreal “groves,” able to reach souls even “Forgotten at the world's edge … unlock[ing] all closed things.” From these ideations, a seemingly exclusively positive, enamouring beauty that is accessible to all, the vivid “light” is associated with the gods of old like “Queen Venus.” Phrases possessing the connotation of isolated, incongruous beauty, such as a “cyprian” woman are also employed. Each line is 10 syllables long and words are fettered to an excessive amount of adjectives - possessive corollary of importance of the stars seeming to be diluted. Moreover, descriptions abound in oxymoronic phrases such as, “swimming fire,” impossible imaginings, contradictory in their nature, illustrating to the reader the fallibility of the poet’s approach. Therefore, overly embellished, unnecessary lavish, repetitively associating beauty without restraint or desire to evoke more concrete ideas, the mellow words of the orator suggest a complacent, leisurely, and unending veneration of the divine beauty of these dispersed, heavenly orbs. He venerates the deified beauty of the universe, communicating to the audience the seemingly sacred, infallible role of the stars in life. Thus, in his very essence, this depicted character contradictions the general zeitgeistian desire of 20th century’s poetry of the time - to confront the problems with humanity, existential despair - instead embracing the previously popular use of romantic language, such as the words, “kisses,” with natural occurrences such as the “moon.”
However, at the beginning if the fourth stanza, the narrator's own voice utters the line, “ I was beating off the stars, gazing, not rhyming,” indicating through the associated dissonance of the act of observing from a distance, a change into a darker, harsher, more terrifying tone. The poem’s quality of being perfectly rhyming, contradicting the statement, positions the audience to begin taking an active role in examining the poem, noticing the fallibility in both perspectives of the poet and the narrator. Adhering to the poet Jaques Prevert’s mid 20th century notion that “a lie always reveals the truth,” a sense of delusion is immediately, too, linked with the narrator, communicating that both extremes, fervent romanticism and existential nihilism, should not be exclusively espoused. The human comprehension of the universe cannot match the disorientating unknowability of the nature if the stars, as illustrated by the words, “dizzily in sick airs.” Such visceral unease is then immediately bolstered through the following alliteration of “bottomless, black cups of space,” presenting a focused fixation on the vile and hopeless existential terror of the narrator, in contradistinction to the poet’s optimism. Evidently, the narrator, as opposed to observing the piercing light if the stars, looks at “Infinity's trap-door, eternal and merciless” - the “cracks,” between the stars - describing existence in this universe as that of residing in inescapable “tunnels of nothingness.” Nkt infused with the warmth and effect of the stars, this immeasurable abyss is indifferent, humbling, engendering his “brain[’s] … terrible lane” of nihilism.
The stanza structure, too, reflects this descent into the narrator’s helpless existentialism - with the first 14 out of the 23 lines of the work, being a variation of the rhyme scheme of a sonnet. Not fitting the rhythm of a sonnet yet nevertheless adhering closely to the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet, the aforementioned dissonance is thus communicated.
Ultimately, the poem neither embraces the existential dread connoting the inadequacy of human comprehension in approaching the universe’s indifferent scale, nor falls into the delusions of the perfervid embracing of life’s often superficial beauty of the poet. The reader’s mind is designed to exist in the middle of them, undulating between the two conceptions is reality, connected through the possibly unnoticeable, short, 3 letter, “but” at the beginning of line 15.
Just as the writer is encumbered, consumed by the boundaries between the stars, the reader falls into the blatant crevice between the perspectives of the romantic poet and the narrator.
Thus, the titular, enigmatic stars, the motif of the poem, become a reflection of the contradictory objects and experiences in life that consistently shatter the “delusional” human conceptions of existence - the bane of one’s ability to value, appreciate and find meaning in all that populates their lives.
A constructed experience, bolstered through the author’s language, Slesser sets a precedent and approach for a value of art in life. Art, created by the an author no better at understanding the universe than the reader, but better at expressing its possibilities, feeds the reader with the stimulus to explore the space between the uniquely human admiration for the sublime beauty and possibly in existence, and the evidently non paradoxical and likewise perfervid feeling of powerlessness. Thus, the poem ‘stars,’ just as the depicted stars themselves, is the gateway into an existential revery that can encourage true self reflection and mindfulness.
If you truly want to see how enjoyable his poetry is to analyse, and the amount of mental inspiration his associations give, enjoy my short analysis of one of his poems: 'Stars.'
Slessor’s short poem ‘Stars,’ discusses the seemingly paradoxical approaches of two characters to these radiant natural phenomena, efficaciously evoking a balanced existential debate in the reader; a reader who’s reinvigorated contradicting views are emphasised with the revealed failings of every employed ideology.
Opening with the bold, emphasised word, “THESE”, the author sets a precedent for the stars’ essential role in ascertaining an understanding of the poem; however, but not explicitly mentioning the stars themselves, an uncomfortable, nebulous atmosphere of uncertainty and interpretation is established. Following this, the explicitly “romantic” poet celebrates these earthly, warm, tangible “floating berries of the night” as surreal “groves,” able to reach souls even “Forgotten at the world's edge … unlock[ing] all closed things.” From these ideations, a seemingly exclusively positive, enamouring beauty that is accessible to all, the vivid “light” is associated with the gods of old like “Queen Venus.” Phrases possessing the connotation of isolated, incongruous beauty, such as a “cyprian” woman are also employed. Each line is 10 syllables long and words are fettered to an excessive amount of adjectives - possessive corollary of importance of the stars seeming to be diluted. Moreover, descriptions abound in oxymoronic phrases such as, “swimming fire,” impossible imaginings, contradictory in their nature, illustrating to the reader the fallibility of the poet’s approach. Therefore, overly embellished, unnecessary lavish, repetitively associating beauty without restraint or desire to evoke more concrete ideas, the mellow words of the orator suggest a complacent, leisurely, and unending veneration of the divine beauty of these dispersed, heavenly orbs. He venerates the deified beauty of the universe, communicating to the audience the seemingly sacred, infallible role of the stars in life. Thus, in his very essence, this depicted character contradictions the general zeitgeistian desire of 20th century’s poetry of the time - to confront the problems with humanity, existential despair - instead embracing the previously popular use of romantic language, such as the words, “kisses,” with natural occurrences such as the “moon.”
However, at the beginning if the fourth stanza, the narrator's own voice utters the line, “ I was beating off the stars, gazing, not rhyming,” indicating through the associated dissonance of the act of observing from a distance, a change into a darker, harsher, more terrifying tone. The poem’s quality of being perfectly rhyming, contradicting the statement, positions the audience to begin taking an active role in examining the poem, noticing the fallibility in both perspectives of the poet and the narrator. Adhering to the poet Jaques Prevert’s mid 20th century notion that “a lie always reveals the truth,” a sense of delusion is immediately, too, linked with the narrator, communicating that both extremes, fervent romanticism and existential nihilism, should not be exclusively espoused. The human comprehension of the universe cannot match the disorientating unknowability of the nature if the stars, as illustrated by the words, “dizzily in sick airs.” Such visceral unease is then immediately bolstered through the following alliteration of “bottomless, black cups of space,” presenting a focused fixation on the vile and hopeless existential terror of the narrator, in contradistinction to the poet’s optimism. Evidently, the narrator, as opposed to observing the piercing light if the stars, looks at “Infinity's trap-door, eternal and merciless” - the “cracks,” between the stars - describing existence in this universe as that of residing in inescapable “tunnels of nothingness.” Nkt infused with the warmth and effect of the stars, this immeasurable abyss is indifferent, humbling, engendering his “brain[’s] … terrible lane” of nihilism.
The stanza structure, too, reflects this descent into the narrator’s helpless existentialism - with the first 14 out of the 23 lines of the work, being a variation of the rhyme scheme of a sonnet. Not fitting the rhythm of a sonnet yet nevertheless adhering closely to the structure of a Shakespearean sonnet, the aforementioned dissonance is thus communicated.
Ultimately, the poem neither embraces the existential dread connoting the inadequacy of human comprehension in approaching the universe’s indifferent scale, nor falls into the delusions of the perfervid embracing of life’s often superficial beauty of the poet. The reader’s mind is designed to exist in the middle of them, undulating between the two conceptions is reality, connected through the possibly unnoticeable, short, 3 letter, “but” at the beginning of line 15.
Just as the writer is encumbered, consumed by the boundaries between the stars, the reader falls into the blatant crevice between the perspectives of the romantic poet and the narrator.
Thus, the titular, enigmatic stars, the motif of the poem, become a reflection of the contradictory objects and experiences in life that consistently shatter the “delusional” human conceptions of existence - the bane of one’s ability to value, appreciate and find meaning in all that populates their lives.
A constructed experience, bolstered through the author’s language, Slesser sets a precedent and approach for a value of art in life. Art, created by the an author no better at understanding the universe than the reader, but better at expressing its possibilities, feeds the reader with the stimulus to explore the space between the uniquely human admiration for the sublime beauty and possibly in existence, and the evidently non paradoxical and likewise perfervid feeling of powerlessness. Thus, the poem ‘stars,’ just as the depicted stars themselves, is the gateway into an existential revery that can encourage true self reflection and mindfulness.
May 8, 2012
Contains one of my two favourite Australian poems ever, 'The Night Express'. It is good stuff.
October 29, 2021
This is an Australian treasure. Poems that evoke place in Sydney and beyond. Five Bells is a classic and has influenced literature since its time. I love this set of poems, they are essential reading for Australian writers.
November 18, 2025
Had to re-read and analyse majority of his works for a uni class this semester, was keen to do so because I genuinely just love the way he writes and articulates Australian culture, voice, flora and fauna.
January 20, 2022
Favourite Poem: Beach Burial
October 18, 2024
Bottomless cups
June 9, 2016
I’m studying Kenneth Slessor and his world at the moment, particularly the 1920s and what better way to see what was happening in the poetry world at that time than to look at Slessor’s first and second collections. As a result this is actually only a partial review of this marvellous Kenneth Slessor Collected Poems.
I thought I’d be clever on Goodreads and actually put up the two collections separately. That way my stats look better. Don’t laugh. These are desperate times. I’m two books behind on my 2016 reading challenge. Anyway, I did some searching on the net. Thief of the Moon, Slessor’s first collection from 1924 is currently selling for over $4,000 and the image is courtesy of the seller so no go. And the image for his second collection Earth Visitors is faded and indiscernible.
I must say, honestly, that I was disappointed in both these early collections. It seems Slessor and probably a lot of other poets were taken up with very antiquated language, references to gods, Pan, fauns and fairies. Sunshine and flowers and rain. Sort of throwback groupies from Romanticism before Modernism reared its head over here. Or at least a strange mix of the two. Lots of thees and thous evidently appeared in the original collections. They have since been excised by Slessor himself and the changes carefully annotated by the editors Dennis Haskell and Geoffrey Dutton.
What stands out for me in the three collections that I read (the third is Backless Betty from Bondi collected after Slessor’s death) is the odd poem that completely grips the imagination and stands out from the rest. I also strayed and read a few of the uncollected poems. One of these that caught my attention was Passenger by Greycliffe. The Greycliffe was a ferry that was involved in a collision with a larger boat the Tahiti and sank in Sydney Harbour in 1927. I’ve only just realised that the title suggests that maybe it is the sunk ferry talking about a passenger.
“Sometimes he lights a lantern far below;
The cloudy waters melt, the shadows pass,
Foam turns to crystal, down a tunnel of glass,
We gaze at things forgotten long ago.”
In Thief of the Moon my favourite poems are January 18, 1922 and Two Nocturnes:
“..The sizzling steam that blows like cotton-wool
From clockwork ferries at a toy pontoon...
The dear electric signs above the Quay...
And all of Sydney that seems wonderful,
Return to haunt me unendurably,
Whilst night leans blackly over Arakoon.”
Also Clocks and several translations of poems or part poems that to me, seem better than the more famous translations annotated in the notes - Old Chinese Poem, Taoist and An Old Harp.
In Earth Visitors my favourite is the powerful Winter Dawn:
“Oh buried dolls, O men sleeping invisible there,
I stare above your mounds of stone, lean down,
Marooned and lonely in this bitter air,
And in one moment deny your frozen town...”
I also really enjoyed Heine in Paris about a German poet and his last years. I must admit that, due to time constraints, I skipped over the collection Cuckooz Contrey and then next is the matchless Five Bells. I reread the title poem to this collection and it is as wonderfully elegiac as I remembered it.
“Where have you gone? The tide is over you,
The turn of midnight water’s over you,
As time is over you, and mystery,
And memory, the flood that does not flow.
You have no suburb, like those easier dead
In private berths of dissolution laid -...”
Oh My God! How can any poet attempt to better such a work? I’ll put Beach Burial in there as well, still timelessly fitting as a tribute to the dead of campaigns that are currently being waged. Also in this collection are another two favourites, William Street and Out of Time:
“I saw Time flowing like the hundred yachts
That fly behind the daylight, foxed with air;
Or piercing, like the quince-bright, bitter slats
Of sun gone thrusting under Harbour’s hair.”
Only a few hours later I discovered that I have quoted the same lines as Ivor Indyk at Sydney Review of Books in his 2015 article on Kenneth Slessor and Time.
Sadly, I didn’t find anything in Backless Betty from Bondi to recommend. For similar, and in my opinion more successful poetry, see my review of Darlinghurst Nights on Goodreads.
What I must say I’m left with after reading approximately half of Collected Poems is Slessor’s fascination with time, subjective and literal. It is something that fascinates me too. Highly recommended for poetry lovers.
I thought I’d be clever on Goodreads and actually put up the two collections separately. That way my stats look better. Don’t laugh. These are desperate times. I’m two books behind on my 2016 reading challenge. Anyway, I did some searching on the net. Thief of the Moon, Slessor’s first collection from 1924 is currently selling for over $4,000 and the image is courtesy of the seller so no go. And the image for his second collection Earth Visitors is faded and indiscernible.
I must say, honestly, that I was disappointed in both these early collections. It seems Slessor and probably a lot of other poets were taken up with very antiquated language, references to gods, Pan, fauns and fairies. Sunshine and flowers and rain. Sort of throwback groupies from Romanticism before Modernism reared its head over here. Or at least a strange mix of the two. Lots of thees and thous evidently appeared in the original collections. They have since been excised by Slessor himself and the changes carefully annotated by the editors Dennis Haskell and Geoffrey Dutton.
What stands out for me in the three collections that I read (the third is Backless Betty from Bondi collected after Slessor’s death) is the odd poem that completely grips the imagination and stands out from the rest. I also strayed and read a few of the uncollected poems. One of these that caught my attention was Passenger by Greycliffe. The Greycliffe was a ferry that was involved in a collision with a larger boat the Tahiti and sank in Sydney Harbour in 1927. I’ve only just realised that the title suggests that maybe it is the sunk ferry talking about a passenger.
“Sometimes he lights a lantern far below;
The cloudy waters melt, the shadows pass,
Foam turns to crystal, down a tunnel of glass,
We gaze at things forgotten long ago.”
In Thief of the Moon my favourite poems are January 18, 1922 and Two Nocturnes:
“..The sizzling steam that blows like cotton-wool
From clockwork ferries at a toy pontoon...
The dear electric signs above the Quay...
And all of Sydney that seems wonderful,
Return to haunt me unendurably,
Whilst night leans blackly over Arakoon.”
Also Clocks and several translations of poems or part poems that to me, seem better than the more famous translations annotated in the notes - Old Chinese Poem, Taoist and An Old Harp.
In Earth Visitors my favourite is the powerful Winter Dawn:
“Oh buried dolls, O men sleeping invisible there,
I stare above your mounds of stone, lean down,
Marooned and lonely in this bitter air,
And in one moment deny your frozen town...”
I also really enjoyed Heine in Paris about a German poet and his last years. I must admit that, due to time constraints, I skipped over the collection Cuckooz Contrey and then next is the matchless Five Bells. I reread the title poem to this collection and it is as wonderfully elegiac as I remembered it.
“Where have you gone? The tide is over you,
The turn of midnight water’s over you,
As time is over you, and mystery,
And memory, the flood that does not flow.
You have no suburb, like those easier dead
In private berths of dissolution laid -...”
Oh My God! How can any poet attempt to better such a work? I’ll put Beach Burial in there as well, still timelessly fitting as a tribute to the dead of campaigns that are currently being waged. Also in this collection are another two favourites, William Street and Out of Time:
“I saw Time flowing like the hundred yachts
That fly behind the daylight, foxed with air;
Or piercing, like the quince-bright, bitter slats
Of sun gone thrusting under Harbour’s hair.”
Only a few hours later I discovered that I have quoted the same lines as Ivor Indyk at Sydney Review of Books in his 2015 article on Kenneth Slessor and Time.
Sadly, I didn’t find anything in Backless Betty from Bondi to recommend. For similar, and in my opinion more successful poetry, see my review of Darlinghurst Nights on Goodreads.
What I must say I’m left with after reading approximately half of Collected Poems is Slessor’s fascination with time, subjective and literal. It is something that fascinates me too. Highly recommended for poetry lovers.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews