Country Towns
"Country Towns" is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor.
It was originally published in the poet's collection Cuckooz Contrey, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Critical reception
In the UQP Studies in Australian Literature volume devoted to the poet, Kenneth Slessor : Critical Readings edited by Philip Mead, Vincent Buckley called this "the most sprightly of his short poems", and Peter Kirkpatrick referred to the poem's "dozy bucolic irony" being "possible because it is evocative of human spaces: towns."While reviewing the poet's 1944 collection, One Hundred Poems : 1919-1939, in The Sydney Morning Herald, R. G. Howarth commented that with this poem "we have, all together, accurate observation, humour, and true poetry."
Author's note
In his commentary about the poem in his essay "Some Notes on the Poems", included in his poetry collection Selected Poems, Slessor stated: "It refers to no country town specifically but is a composite of many which have seemed the same. Its period is fading, or perhaps has already vanished, since farmers today prefer motors to mares and buggy-wheels are seldom heard."Publication history
After the poem's initial publication Cuckooz Contrey in 1932 it was reprinted as follows:One Hundred Poems : 1919-1939 by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1944Poets of Australia : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1946An Australasian Anthology : Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll, and Frank Wilmot, Collins, 1946 This Land of Ours : Australia edited by George Farwell and Frank H. Johnston, Angus and Robertson, 1949New Land, New Language : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1957Australian Poets Speak edited by Colin Thiele and Ian Mudie, Rigby, 1961Modern Australian Verse edited by Douglas Stewart, Angus and Robertson, 1964Songs for All Seasons : 100 Poems for Young People edited by Rosemary Dobson, Angus and Robertson, 1967Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968The Land's Meaning edited by L. M. Hannan and B. A. Breen, Macmillan, 1973Australia Fair : Poems and Paintings edited by Douglas Stewart, Ure Smith, 1974Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1975Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, 1976The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, Nelson, 1984My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, Faber, 1991Kenneth Slessor : Poetry, Essays, War Despatches, War Diaries, Journalism, Autobiographical Material and Letters edited by Dennis Haskell, University of Queensland Press, 1991A Treasury of Bush Verse edited by G. A. Wilkes, Angus and Robertson, 1991Kenneth Slessor : Collected Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1994Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 1994Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, Gary Allen, 2007The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011The poem was also translated into Esperanto in 1988.