AustLit
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.
Latest Issues
AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'This harvesting of Vincent Buckley's work is a long overdue moment in Australian poetry. Not only was Buckley a profoundly original, steadily changing poet; he was also an intellectual leader in our culture during the politically demanding decades that followed World War Two. His poems, gathered here, bear witness to the conflicts of those years, to his Irish-Australian heritage, to interactions with modern American poetry and, above all, to his delicately lyrical sense of morality. A nervous energy pulses everywhere. The last volume of Buckley's poetry appeared in 1991, three years after his death. Roughly three-quarters of that collection carried his working title, 'A Poetry Without Attitude', signalling something essential about his later work. Having begun as a poet of haunting rhetorical power, he had gradually pumiced his verse so that it stood clear, without any intrusive sense of the poet's personality. His is poetry of unique temper, surely. Here you will find the full range of it, previously published and unpublished.' (Publisher's Blurb)
Notes
-
Editor's note: In this presentation of Vincent Buckley's poetry the complete texts of all his books have been included, except for the first two, which are represented by a selection of the strongest poems from that stage of his writing. There is also in this volume a large array of previously uncollected poems. Penelope Buckley's help has been invaluable, in scouring manuscripts for poems we could judge as having been brought successfully to conclusion. She and I had already done a good deal of this work in preparing the posthumous book, Last Poems (1991). The ordering of poems made for that book has been respected here.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
-
Vincent Buckley and His Land of No Fathers : The Irish Shadow on His Work
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Shadow of the Precursor 2012; (p. 38-47) ‘Vincent Buckley maintained that as an Irish Australian he had grown up as a member of a persecuted minority. He also claimed that, although this minority was crucial in shaping the Australian identity, its members had failed to keep an imaginative connection with their homeland. Much of his work can be read as an attempt to rediscover this link, but his understanding of the Irish element changes over his career. In his earlier work, his concern is with the Irish tradition of WB Yeats and James Joyce, and with his own forefathers as people dispossessed by the heartless English. Later he becomes involved with the fate of the nationalists in Northern Ireland. This leads him both to take direct political action in Australia and to write some of his most significant poems. These show the influence of Seamus Heaney or John Kinsella rather than Yeats, but also bring to bear a distinctly Australian sensibility.’ (38) -
Vincent Buckley's 'Collected Poems' : On Love, Conflict and Poetry
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Blast , Autumn/Winter no. 11 2010; (p. 39-48) -
Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems Edited by Chris Wallace-Crabbe
2009
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Poetry Review , vol. 4 no. 2009;
— Review of Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry -
On the Road to Revelation
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 22-23 August 2009; (p. 32)
— Review of Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry ; Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley 2009 single work biography -
At the Crossroads : Australian Poetry 2008-2009
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Westerly , July vol. 54 no. 1 2009; (p. 115-127)
— Review of The Golden Bird 2008 single work poetry ; View from the Lucky Hotel 2008 selected work poetry ; Theatre 2008 selected work poetry ; Letters to the Tremulous Hand 2007 selected work poetry ; Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry ; True Thoughts 2008 selected work poetry ; The Other Way Out 2007 single work poetry ; Bark 2008 selected work poetry ; Divine Comedy : Journeys Through Regional Geography 2008 selected work poetry prose ; Growing Up With Mr Menzies 2008 selected work poetry ; Man Wolf Man 2007 selected work poetry ; Aria 2008 selected work poetry ; Autographs : 56 Poems in Prose 2006 selected work poetry ; Ambulances and Dreamers 2008 selected work poetry ; Speed and Other Liberties 2008 selected work poetry ; Therapy Like Fish : New and Selected Poems 2008 selected work poetry ; Sixty Classic Australian Poems 2009 single work criticism ; Poems : 1980-2008 2008 selected work poetry ; The Incoming Tide 2007 selected work poetry ; Southern Edge : Three Stories in Verse 2009 selected work poetry
-
Buckley's Second Chance
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Australian Literary Review , February vol. 4 no. 1 2009; (p. 22)
— Review of Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry ; Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley 2009 single work biography -
Seductive Melancholy of a Poet's Last Works
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Eureka Street , 9 April vol. 19 no. 6 2009;
— Review of Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley 2009 single work biography ; Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry -
A Romantic Sensibility
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Age , 9 May 2009; (p. 22)
— Review of Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry ; Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley 2009 single work biography -
Buckley's Varied Voice Heard Again
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 11 July 2009; (p. 14)
— Review of Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley 2009 single work biography ; Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry -
The Skull beneath the Skin
2009
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , July-August no. 313 2009; (p. 17-19)
— Review of Vincent Buckley : Collected Poems 2009 selected work poetry ; Journey Without Arrival : The Life and Writing of Vincent Buckley 2009 single work biography -
Vincent Buckley's 'Collected Poems' : On Love, Conflict and Poetry
2010
single work
criticism
— Appears in: Blast , Autumn/Winter no. 11 2010; (p. 39-48) -
Vincent Buckley and His Land of No Fathers : The Irish Shadow on His Work
2012
single work
criticism
— Appears in: The Shadow of the Precursor 2012; (p. 38-47) ‘Vincent Buckley maintained that as an Irish Australian he had grown up as a member of a persecuted minority. He also claimed that, although this minority was crucial in shaping the Australian identity, its members had failed to keep an imaginative connection with their homeland. Much of his work can be read as an attempt to rediscover this link, but his understanding of the Irish element changes over his career. In his earlier work, his concern is with the Irish tradition of WB Yeats and James Joyce, and with his own forefathers as people dispossessed by the heartless English. Later he becomes involved with the fate of the nationalists in Northern Ireland. This leads him both to take direct political action in Australia and to write some of his most significant poems. These show the influence of Seamus Heaney or John Kinsella rather than Yeats, but also bring to bear a distinctly Australian sensibility.’ (38)
Last amended 11 Feb 2021 14:14:36