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The Death of the Bird single work   poetry   "For every bird there is this last migration:"
  • Author:agent A. D. Hope http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/hope-a-d
Issue Details: First known date: 1955... 1955 The Death of the Bird
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Notes

  • Minor punctuation variation between versions

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Wandering Islands A. D. Hope , Sydney : Edwards and Shaw , 1955 Z326286 1955 selected work poetry Sydney : Edwards and Shaw , 1955 pg. 40
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Signpost : An Anthology Edited for the Canberra Fellowship of Australian Writers T. A. G. Hungerford (editor), Melbourne : Cheshire , 1956 Z151543 1956 anthology short story poetry prose biography Melbourne : Cheshire , 1956 pg. 165-166
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Australian Verse John Thompson (editor), Kenneth Slessor (editor), R. G. Howarth (editor), Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1958 Z1013022 1958 anthology poetry Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1958 pg. 123-124
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    y separately published work icon Australian Poets Speak Colin Thiele (editor), Ian Mudie (editor), Adelaide : Rigby , 1961 Z223492 1961 anthology poetry criticism Adelaide : Rigby , 1961 pg. 82-83
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    y separately published work icon Makar no. 7 June 1961 Z607191 1961 periodical issue 1961 pg. 4
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Modern Australian Verse Douglas Stewart (editor), Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1964 Z390812 1964 anthology poetry Editor's Introduction: The anthology covers 'from 1930 onwards'... And, lastly, of course, an anthology of this kind should attempt to give as wide a picture as possible, consistent with quality, of Australian poetry in the period. That I have certainly tried to do; but without losing sight of the principle that it should be enjoyable. ... Douglas Stewart (q.v.) (xxi-xxxv). Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1964 pg. 52-54
  • 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. 176-177
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Poetry : Reading and Understanding : An Anthology with Commentaries and Questions K. G. W. Cross (editor), Derick R. C. Marsh (editor), Melbourne : Cheshire , 1966 Z61749 1966 anthology poetry criticism biography Melbourne : Cheshire , 1966 pg. 217-221
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    y separately published work icon Silence into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse Clifford O'Brien , Adelaide : Rigby , 1968 Z413694 1968 anthology poetry extract Adelaide : Rigby , 1968 pg. 72-73
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A Book of Australian Verse Judith Wright (editor), Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1956 Z565053 1956 anthology poetry Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 1968 pg. 131-132
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Collected Poems 1930-1965 A. D. Hope , New York (City) : Viking , 1966 Z244918 1966 selected work poetry satire humour Collected Poems 1930-1970 Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1972 pg. 69-71
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Australian Verse Harry Payne Heseltine (editor), Ringwood Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1972 Z334403 1972 anthology poetry Selection of works by Australian poets from Charles Harpur (1813-1868) to Charles Buckmaster (b. 1951). Ringwood Harmondsworth : Penguin , 1972 pg. 192-193
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems A. D. Hope : Selected Poems A. D. Hope , Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1973 Z370389 1973 selected work poetry This collection ... omits some of the longer pieces in my Collected poems 1930-1970 but brings the selection up to date by the inclusion of a number of poems written since then.' (Author's preface.) Sydney : Angus and Robertson , 1973 pg. 46-48
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    y separately published work icon Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum Geoffrey Dutton (editor), Adelaide : Rigby , 1976 Z399014 1976 anthology Adelaide : Rigby , 1976 pg. 183
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon This World : An Anthology of Poetry for Young People M. M. Flynn (editor), J. Groom (editor), Rushcutters Bay : Pergamon Press , 1976 Z816539 1976 anthology poetry children's Rushcutters Bay : Pergamon Press , 1976 pg. 62-63
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The World's Contracted Thus J. A. McKenzie (editor), J. K. McKenzie (editor), Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1983 Z174491 1983 anthology poetry Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1983 pg. 282-283
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse Beatrice Davis , Melbourne : Nelson , 1984 Z315151 1984 anthology poetry biography Melbourne : Nelson , 1984 pg. 145-146
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse John Barnes (editor), Brian McFarlane (editor), Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 Z900285 1984 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 pg. 94-95
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years Leonie Kramer (editor), Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 Z1067493 1985 anthology poetry short story Sydney : Lansdowne , 1985 pg. 240
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse John Barnes (editor), Brian McFarlane (editor), Richmond : Heinemann , 1984 Z900285 1984 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) Richmond : Heinemann Education Australia , 1988 pg. 94-95
  • 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. 76-77
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry John Tranter (editor), Philip Mead (editor), Ringwood : Penguin , 1991 Z151302 1991 anthology poetry Ringwood : Penguin , 1991 pg. 19-20
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse Vincent Buckley (editor), London : Faber , 1991 Z563845 1991 anthology poetry war literature satire humour London : Faber , 1991 pg. 31-32
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Selected Poems A. D. Hope , David Brooks (editor), Pymble : Angus and Robertson , 1992 Z552438 1992 selected work poetry Pymble : Angus and Robertson , 1992 pg. 21-22
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon 唐正秋, 肖爱华编 ; 唐正秋等译 A Selection of Chinese and Australian Poems Zhengqiu Tang (editor), Xiao Aihua (editor), Zhengqiu Tang (translator), Zhuhai : 珠海出版社 , 1994 17089452 1994 anthology poetry Zhuhai : 珠海出版社 , 1994 pg. 137-145
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon An Anthology of Australian Literature Hoju munhak chonjip Ch'oe Chin-yong (editor), Cynthia Van Den Driesen (editor), Seoul : Hansin Munhwasa , 1995 Z994880 1995 anthology poetry short story Seoul : Hansin Munhwasa , 1995 pg. 145-146
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse Beatrice Davis , Melbourne : Nelson , 1984 Z315151 1984 anthology poetry biography Sydney : State Library of New South Wales Press , 1996 pg. 145-146
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Scythe Honed Fine : A.D. Hope, A Celebration for his 90th Birthday A. D. Hope , Canberra : National Library of Australia , 1997 Z76868 1997 selected work poetry criticism biography Poetry by A.D. Hope with an introductory essay about the poet. Canberra : National Library of Australia , 1997 pg. 24-25
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon A. D. Hope : Selected Poetry and Prose A. D. Hope , David Brooks (editor), Rushcutters Bay : Halstead Press , 2000 Z398744 2000 selected work poetry essay extract review (taught in 1 units) Rushcutters Bay : Halstead Press , 2000 pg. 27-28
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    y separately published work icon Sunlines : An Anthology of Poetry to Celebrate Australia's Harmony in Diversity Anne Fairbairn (editor), Canberra : Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs , 2002 Z948024 2002 anthology poetry Canberra : Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs , 2002 pg. 36-37
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Seven Centuries of Poetry in English John Leonard (editor), South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 2003 Z1058257 2003 anthology poetry (taught in 6 units) Contains poetry from twelve countries, including Australia, and spans the development of English poetry over seven centuries. South Melbourne : Oxford University Press , 2003 pg. 126
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Poetry Library APRIL; APL; The Australian Poetry Resources Internet Library John Tranter , Sydney : 2004- Z1368099 2004- website

    'The Australian Poetry Library (APL) aims to promote a greater appreciation and understanding of Australian poetry by providing access to a wide range of poetic texts as well as to critical and contextual material relating to them, including interviews, photographs and audio/visual recordings.

    This website currently contains over 42,000 poems, representing the work of more than 170 Australian poets. All the poems are fully searchable, and may be accessed and read freely on the World Wide Web. Readers wishing to download and print poems may do so for a small fee, part of which is returned to the poets via CAL, the Copyright Agency Limited. Teachers, students and readers of Australian poetry can also create personalised anthologies, which can be purchased and downloaded. Print on demand versions will be availabe from Sydney University Press in the near future.

    It is hoped that the APL will encourage teachers to use more Australian material in their English classes, as well as making Australian poetry much more available to readers in remote and regional areas and overseas. It will also help Australian poets, not only by developing new audiences for their work but by allowing them to receive payment for material still in copyright, thus solving the major problem associated with making this material accessible on the Internet.

    The Australian Poetry Library is a joint initiative of the University of Sydney and the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL). Begun in 2004 with a prototype site developed by leading Australian poet John Tranter, the project has been funded by a major Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council (ARC), CAL and the University of Sydney Library. A team of researchers from the University of Sydney, led by Professor Elizabeth Webby and John Tranter, in association with CAL, have developed the Australian Poetry Library as a permanent and wide-ranging Internet archive of Australian poetry resources.' Source: www.poetrylibrary.edu.au (Sighted 30/05/2011).

    Sydney : 2004-
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry John Kinsella (editor), Camberwell : Penguin , 2009 Z1553543 2009 anthology poetry (taught in 16 units)

    'This is a comprehensive survey of Australian poetic achievement, ranging from early colonial and indigenous verse to contemporary work, from the major poets to those who deserve to be better recognised.' (Provided by the publisher).

    Camberwell : Penguin , 2009
    pg. 158-160
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature Nicholas Jose (editor), Kerryn Goldsworthy (editor), Anita Heiss (editor), David McCooey (editor), Peter Minter (editor), Nicole Moore (editor), Elizabeth Webby (editor), Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009 Z1590615 2009 anthology correspondence diary drama essay extract poetry prose short story (taught in 23 units)

    'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

    'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

    'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

    'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

    'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

    Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

    Crows Nest : Allen and Unwin , 2009
    pg. 526-527
  • Appears in:
    y separately published work icon Australian Poetry Since 1788 Geoffrey Lehmann (editor), Robert Gray (editor), Sydney : University of New South Wales Press , 2011 Z1803846 2011 anthology poetry (taught in 1 units) 'A good poem is one that the world can’t forget or is delighted to rediscover. This landmark anthology of Australian poetry, edited by two of Australia’s foremost poets, Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, contains such poems. It is the first of its kind for Australia and promises to become a classic. Included here are Australia’s major poets, and lesser-known but equally affecting ones, and all manifestations of Australian poetry since 1788, from concrete poems to prose poems, from the cerebral to the naïve, from the humorous to the confessional, and from formal to free verse. Translations of some striking Aboriginal song poems are one of the high points. Containing over 1000 poems from 170 Australian poets, as well as short critical biographies, this careful reevaluation of Australian poetry makes this a superb book that can be read and enjoyed over a lifetime.' (From the publisher's website.) Sydney : University of New South Wales Press , 2011 pg. 305-306
  • 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
Alternative title: Ajal si Burung Betina
First line of verse: "For every bird there is this last migration:=Bagi setiap burung ada perjalanan penghabisan:"
Language: English , Indonesian

Works about this Work

Not Unkind i "It will be our last visit", John Pfitzner , 2012 single work poetry
— Appears in: Friendly Street : New Poets Seventeen 2012; (p. 18) The Mozzie , July vol. 20 no. 5 2012; (p. 6)
Activist Readings of Three Australian Poems John Kinsella , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Activist Poetics : Anarchy in the Avon Valley 2010; (p. 97-128)
An Uncanny Reading of A. D. Hope's 'The Death of the Bird' John Kinsella , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 68 no. 3 2008; (p. 172-187)
In this essay Kinsella reads Hope's poem 'within and against the uncanny' (186). Set against a Western Australian landscape and history, the poem is interpreted as being not only about the bird, but also about the fear of loss of home, movement, and a compulsion to persist.
A. D Hope's 'The Death of the Bird' : Between Romantic Symbol and Modernist Anti-symbol Henry Weinfield , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 68 no. 3 2008; (p. 161-171)
In his close examination of Hope's elegy, Weinfield argues that the bird is not a Romantic symbol, or a Modernist anti-symbol, but rather a form of life that the poet is capable of understanding, because 'he understands that he himself is a form of life and that, therefore, nothing living is alien to him' (164). Although its artistic values might now be out of fashion, Weinfield finds the poem original and extraordinary because of the Hope's ability to evoke love and tenderness, 'not only as a theme but through his language and the movement of his quatrains' (170), and he predicts that the poem is 'going to remain with us for a long time - as long as English poetry is read' (171).
Hope's Bird i "earthwards she fell, gravity-shrouded, down", Carol Bradburn , 2007 single work poetry
— Appears in: Poetrix , May no. 28 2007; (p. 31)
Hope's Bird i "earthwards she fell, gravity-shrouded, down", Carol Bradburn , 2007 single work poetry
— Appears in: Poetrix , May no. 28 2007; (p. 31)
A. D. Hope's The Death of a Bird Vaughan Prain , 1982 single work criticism
— Appears in: Viewpoints : H.S.C. English Literature , no. 83 1982; (p. 50-53)
'Inane Dominions' : A. D. Hope's 'The Death of the Bird' Laurie Clancy , 1985 single work criticism
— Appears in: Viewpoints : H.S.C. English Literature , no. 86 1985; (p. 52-55)
A. D Hope's 'The Death of the Bird' : Between Romantic Symbol and Modernist Anti-symbol Henry Weinfield , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 68 no. 3 2008; (p. 161-171)
In his close examination of Hope's elegy, Weinfield argues that the bird is not a Romantic symbol, or a Modernist anti-symbol, but rather a form of life that the poet is capable of understanding, because 'he understands that he himself is a form of life and that, therefore, nothing living is alien to him' (164). Although its artistic values might now be out of fashion, Weinfield finds the poem original and extraordinary because of the Hope's ability to evoke love and tenderness, 'not only as a theme but through his language and the movement of his quatrains' (170), and he predicts that the poem is 'going to remain with us for a long time - as long as English poetry is read' (171).
An Uncanny Reading of A. D. Hope's 'The Death of the Bird' John Kinsella , 2008 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 68 no. 3 2008; (p. 172-187)
In this essay Kinsella reads Hope's poem 'within and against the uncanny' (186). Set against a Western Australian landscape and history, the poem is interpreted as being not only about the bird, but also about the fear of loss of home, movement, and a compulsion to persist.
Last amended 29 Jun 2023 11:27:58
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