The Penguin Book of Australian Verse

The Penguin Book of Australian Verse
AuthorHarry Heseltine
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry anthology
PublisherPenguin
Publication date1972
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages483 pp.
ISBN0140421629

The Penguin Book of Australian Verse is an anthology of Australian poetry edited and introduced by Harry Heseltine, published by Penguin in 1972.[1]

The collection contains 270 poems, from a number of authors and sources.[2]

Background

In his introduction to this volume editor Harry Heseltine provides a number of "basic principles" he followed in making the poetry selections represented here. He had not attmepted "to make every previous collection obsolete", rather "to supplement and complement that sense of what is central to our poetry which earlier collections have helped to form."

He makes no "apology" for including a number of "standard anthology pieces", though he does point out that where T. Inglis Moore compiled a volume of 278 pages of verse from the earliest colonial works up to the time of Mary Gilmore (see From the Ballads to Brennan), he, Heseltine, had made do with 50 pages of material from that period.

His aim was to include "the best poems written in this country since 1788".[3]

Contents

Critical reception

Philp Roberts, reviewing the anthology for The Sydney Morning Herald, called the book "a truly fair selection of what most readers would see as the core of Australian poetry."[4]

In The Canberra Times Maurice Dunlevy tended to agree with this assessment, concluding: "Harry Heseltine's selections are in general representative of current critical evaluations. He has gathered most of the poems that most critics would regard as valuable, except in the case of the major poets, who cannot be represented adequately by short selections. The book is now the best available anthology of Australian verse."[5]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 2 April 2026.
  2. ↑ "Austlit — The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine". Austlit. Retrieved 2 April 2026.
  3. ↑ The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1976 edition, "Introduction", pp. 27-53. Accessed: 2 April 2026
  4. ↑ ""The best of Australian poetry"". The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 September 1972. ProQuest 2525734557. Retrieved 2 April 2026.
  5. ↑ ""A modern anthology of poetry"". The Canberra Times, 7 October 1972. Retrieved 2 April 2026.
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