Windy Gap (poem)
"Windy Gap" is a poem by Australian poet David Campbell.
It was first published in The Bulletin on 12 December 1951 and later in several of the author's poetry collections and a number of other Australian poetry anthologies.
Outline
A shepherd, moving his sheep through Windy Gap, is transfixed by a hawk and a magpie who seem to bring the world around him into sharper focus.
Critical reception
In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page noted "You can almost see the Akubra, the Drizabone and the R. M. Williams boots; you can practically smell the horse sweat though none of these is mentioned. You can feel seventeenth- and nineteenth-century English verse in the background, but you don’t doubt for a minute it's Australian."
Further publications
After its initial publication in The Bulletin in 1951, the poem was reprinted as follows:Australia Writes : An Anthology edited by T. Inglis Moore, Cheshire, 1953The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R. G. Howarth, Penguin Books, 1958Australian Poets Speak edited by Colin Thiele and Ian Mudie, Rigby, 1961Vision Vol 1 No 1, Jun 1963Selected Poems 1942-1968 by David Campbell, Angus and Robertson, 1968Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972The Land's Meaning edited by L. M. Hannan and B. A. Breen, Macmillan, 1973Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, 1976Selected Poems by David Campbell, Angus and Robertson, 1978The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabb, Melbourne University Press, 1980The 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, 1985Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1988Collected Poems by David Campbell, edited by Leonie Kramer, Angus and Robertson, 1989Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 199480 Great Poems from Chaucer to Now edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2006Hardening of the Light by David Campbell, edited by Philip Mead, Indigo, 2006The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella, Penguin, 200960 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 2009The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009Sense, Shape, Symbol : An Investigation of Australian Poetry edited by Brian Keyte, Phoenix Education, 2013