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Reading the river : selected poems / Robert Adamson.

Van Pelt Library PR9619.3.A4 R42 2004
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Adamson, Robert.
Language:
English
Physical Description:
223 pages ; 24 cm
Place of Publication:
Tarset, Northumberland : Bloodaxe ; [Chester Springs, PA] : [U.S. distributor, Dufour Editions], 2004.
Summary:
Robert Adamson has been nourished for much of his life by Australia's Hawkesbury River. Reading the River praises nature - red in tooth and claw - and celebrates existence as a mythological quest. The early poems trace Adamson's own journey through a difficult childhood, prison and exile in the city, the source of a hard-won scepticism undercutting the highly personal Romanticism and daring lyricism of his later work.
Contents:
From Canticles on the Skin (1970)
The rebel angel 17
Demimondane 18
Through a trammel of lives 19
Toward abstraction/possibly a gull's wing 20
From The Rumour (1971)
Action would kill it/a gamble 22
The unpopular scale of values 23
Passing through experiences 24
The domesticity 25
A revelation 26
Card tables covered with dice 27
Getting further away 28
From Swamp Riddles (1974)
Things going out of my life 31
Sibyl 32
Goshawk over Broken Bay 33
Sonnets to be written from prison 34
The beautiful season 37
Some more experiences 38
Wind without flags 39
Sail away 40
The crossing 41
The shining incidents 42
1 A new legend 42
2 Drifting through silence 43
3 The night parrots 44
4 The ghost crabs 45
Berowra Waters 46
From Cross the Border (1977)
Lovesong from across the border 49
Parrot poem 50
Dead Horse Bay 51
The river 52
Apprehensions 53
Sunlight, moonlight 54
From Where I Come From (1979)
My house 57
My granny 58
The harbour bridge 59
My first proper girlfriend 60
My tenth birthday 61
My fishing boat 62
Growing up alone 63
My afternoon 68
From The Law at Heart's Desire (1982)
Rimbaud having a bath 70
The home, the spare room 71
Into forest 72
In the night 73
Glass Bay sonnets 74
Landscape 76
From The Clean Dark (1989)
Remembering posts 78
Green prawn map 79
The channels 80
Songs for Juno 81
American sonnet 83
The Jesus bird 84
Fishing with my stepson 85
Couplets 86
Silva 87
Clear water reckoning 88
The details necessary 90
Sonnets for Robert Duncan 92
No river, no death 94
Farming the oysters 97
What's slaughtered's gone 98
Wild colonial boys 100
Canticle for the bicentennial dead 101
From Wards of the State (1990)
Social realist 104
Sign this 105
State ward sonnet 106
Kenneth Slessor dancing 107
Boat with an empty mind 108
Ode on Beckett's death 110
From Waving to Hart Crane (1994)
Rock carving with Kevin Gilbert 113
Folk song 114
Waving to Hart Crane 115
Cornflowers 116
The Australian crawl 118
Alcohol 119
A future book 121
Side of the creek 122
What I have of faith 124
From The Language of Oysters (1997)
Meshing bends in the light 126
The language of oysters 127
From Black Water: Approaching Zukofsky (1999)
The Stone Curlew
The stone curlew 130
The pheasant-tailed jacana 131
The great knot 132
Arctic jaeger 133
The whimbrel 134
The southern skua 135
Tropic Bird
When the light slants against the tide 136
Drum of fire 137
In the open air 138
At Berry's Bay 139
Swimming out with Emmylou Harris 140
Tropic bird 141
Kingfishers appearing 142
Crows in afternoon sunlight 143
The gathering light 144
Approaching Zukofsky
Meaning 145
The night heron 146
The bunker 147
The white abyss 149
Approaching Zukofsky 150
Black water 152
Daybook for Eurydice
A sprig of delphinium (2 pm) 153
Raining italics (4 pm) 153
The transcribed hoop (6 pm) 154
The visible, the untrue (1 pm) 154
The bower of bliss (1 am) 155
Nothing on the mind (3 am) 155
Our different versions (4 am) 156
The sepia hummock (10.30 am) 156
She speaks, language falls apart 157
At the ferry, the tide 157
Song 158
Coda: the nightjar 158
Creon's Dream
After Brett Whiteley 159
The art critic 160
Creon's dream 161
From Mulberry Leaves (2001)
Eventail: for Mery in Paris 164
On not seeing Paul Cezanne 165
Symbolism 166
Elizabeth Bishop in Tasmania 167
The upland sandpiper 168
The Hudsonian godwit 169
The cow bird 170
Memory walks 171
Reaching light 172
Coal & Candle Creek 173
Spring night 174
Domestic shuffle 175
Father's Day 176
Letter to James McAuley 177
Letter to Chris Brennan 178
Letter to John Tranter 179
Letter to Vicki Viidikas 180
Letter to Robert Creeley 181
Letter to Tom Raworth 182
Letter to Bob Dylan 183
The flow-through 184
Fishing in a landscape for love 185
Harriet and Mary 186
Cornflowers 187
Flannel flowers for Juno 188
Juno & Eurydice 189
Reading Georg Trakl 190
Eurydice in Sydney 191
Mulberry leaves 192
New Poems (2004)
The first chance was the last chance 195
The dollarbird 196
Middle Harbour to The Heads 197
Flag-tailed bird of paradise 198
The goldfinches of Baghdad 199
Not a penny sonnets 200
Apostlebird 202
Black laughter 203
Gang gang cockatoos 204
Elegy 205
Red-necked avocet 206
Major Mitchell's pink cockatoo 207
Thinking of Eurydice at midnight 208
The red-bearded bee-eater 209
Rainbow bee-eaters 210
The grey whistler 211
Brahminy kite 212
Eclectus parrot 213
The ruff 214.
Notes:
Includes index.
Distributor from label on P. [4] of cover.
ISBN:
1852246391
OCLC:
55586911

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