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Surely God Was a Lover single work   poetry   "Surely God was a lover when He bade the day begin"
Issue Details: First known date: 1910... 1910 Surely God Was a Lover
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Notes

  • A version of this poem, entitled 'Surely God Is a Lover,' is performed by Jimmie Little on the album Resonate (Festival Records, 2001). The lyrics are modified by Paul Kelly, with music arranged by Richard Pleasance.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Sun [Sydney] 9 October 1910 Z631048 1910 newspaper issue 1910
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Bookfellow 15 July 1914 Z631050 1914 periodical issue 1914 pg. 28
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Collected Poems of John Shaw Neilson John Shaw Neilson , R. H. Croll (editor), Melbourne : Lothian , 1934 Z356344 1934 selected work poetry Melbourne : Lothian , 1934 pg. 45
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon An Introduction to Australian Literature Literary Criterion 6.3 (1964) C. D. Narasimhaiah (editor), Brisbane : Jacaranda Press , 1965 Z283778 1964 anthology Brisbane : Jacaranda Press , 1965 pg. 166
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Green Days and Cherries : The Early Verses of Shaw Neilson John Shaw Neilson , Hugh Anderson (editor), Leslie James Blake (editor), 1914 Z1310054 1914 selected work poetry Ascot Vale : Red Rooster Press , 1981 pg. 80
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry C. D. Narasimhaiah (editor), Chennai : Macmillan , 1990 Z1176727 1990 anthology poetry Chennai : Macmillan , 1990 pg. 69-70
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon John Shaw Neilson : Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence John Shaw Neilson , Cliff Hanna (editor), St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1991 Z226270 1991 selected work poetry autobiography correspondence extract St Lucia : University of Queensland Press , 1991 pg. 60-61
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems John Shaw Neilson , Robert Gray (editor), Pymble : Angus and Robertson , 1993 Z116679 1993 selected work poetry Pymble : Angus and Robertson , 1993 pg. 59-60
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Hell and After : Four Early English-Language Poets of Australia Les Murray (editor), Manchester Petersham : Carcanet ETT Imprint , 2005 Z1219692 2005 anthology poetry prose Manchester Petersham : Carcanet ETT Imprint , 2005 pg. 97
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Collected Verse of John Shaw Neilson John Shaw Neilson , Margaret Roberts (editor), Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2012 Z1896645 2012 collected work poetry Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2012 pg. 178
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Love Is Strong as Death Paul Kelly (editor), Melbourne : Hamish Hamilton , 2019 17491295 2019 anthology poetry

    'Paul Kelly’s songs are steeped in poetry. And now he has gathered from around the world the poems he loves – poems that have inspired and challenged him over the years, a number of which he has set to music. This wide-ranging and deeply moving anthology combines the ancient and the modern, the hallowed and the profane, the famous and the little known, to speak to two of literature’s great themes that have proven so powerful in his music: love and death – plus everything in between.

    'Here are poems by Yehuda Amichai, W.H. Auden, Tusiata Avia, Hera Lindsay Bird, William Blake, Bertolt Brecht, Constantine Cavafy, Alison Croggon, Mahmoud Darwish, Emily Dickinson, John Donne, Ali Cobby Eckermann, James Fenton, Thomas Hardy, Kevin Hart, Gwen Harwood, Seamus Heaney, Philip Hodgins, Homer, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Langston Hughes, John Keats, Ono No Komachi, Maxine Kumin, Philip Larkin, Li-Young Lee, Norman MacCaig, Paula Meehan, Czeslaw Milosz, Les Murray, Pablo Neruda, Sharon Olds, Ovid, Sylvia Plath, Dorothy Porter, Rumi, Anne Sexton, William Shakespeare, Izumi Shikibu, Warsan Shire, Kenneth Slessor, Wislawa Szymborska, Máire Mhac an tSaoi, Ko Un, Walt Whitman, Judith Wright, W.B. Yeats and many more.'

    Source: Publisher's blurb.

         Melbourne : Hamish Hamilton , 2019
VIEW PUBLICATION DETAILS FOR ALL VERSIONS ()

Works about this Work

Valediction to Morning 1910-1920 Cliff Hanna , 1990 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Folly of Spring : A Study of John Shaw Neilson's Poetry 1990; (p. 73-108)
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Last amended 29 Jun 2023 11:49:09
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