South Country
"South Country" is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor.
It was originally published in the poet's collection Five Bells : XX Poems, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Synopsis
The poet lyrically travels from the inhabited fertile coastal strip of Australia to the "South Country", the "flat earth of empty farms". This is a "monstrous continent", so huge "You walk on the sky's beach".
Critical reception
In his Oxford University Press book about Slessor and his work, Adrian Caesar noted that the poet "conceives the trees as in an argument, but their doubts and quarrellings, the 'plots and pains' are ended by 'clear and gliding plains/Like an abrupt solution.'" He also commented that "As in 'North Country' the landscape is threatening, dealing in death and punishment.”
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication Five Bells : XX Poems in 1939 it was reprinted as follows:One Hundred Poems : 1919-1939 by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1944Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1957The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R. G. Howarth, Penguin Books, 1958The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabb, Melbourne University Press, 1980The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981The World's Contracted Thus edited by J. A. McKenzie and J. K. McKenzie, Heinemann Education, 1983Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann, Heinemann, 1991The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, Faber, 1991The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry edited by John Tranter and Philip Mead, Penguin, 1991Kenneth Slessor : Poetry, Essays, War Despatches, War Diaries, Journalism, Autobiographical Material and Letters edited by Dennis Haskell, University of Queensland Press, 1991Kenneth Slessor : Collected Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1994Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 1994The Arnold Anthology of Post-Colonial Literatures in English edited by John Thieme, Arnold, 1996Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998A Return to Poetry 2000 edited by Michael Duffy Sunlines : An Anthology of Poetry to Celebrate Australia's Harmony in Diversity edited by Anne Fairbairn, Dept of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, 2002Little Book of Flowers edited by Della Thomas and Wendy Mehnert, National Library of Australia, 2002100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant, Hardie Grant, 2008Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore, and Elizabeth Webby, Allen and Unwin, 2009The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009