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'This is the first volume of a three-volume Collected Poems by John Kinsella that dates back to when he was seventeen, and moves on through forty-one-plus years of writing and memorising poetry. Collected in one place for the first time are poems that have appeared in chapbooks or other publications outside Australia, or that are out of print. Kinsella’s major poetic concerns have been how to write place without claiming place (he acknowledges he lives on stolen Aboriginal land), how to write of being part of many place-experiences at once, and how to write the biosphere with ecological and humanitarian justice in mind. Further, his poems consider how we might be regionally communal and internationally responsive at once, without ever succumbing to economic globalism: a mode of living he refers to as ‘international regionalism’. Always attuned to the natural world, his activist poetry examines how humans respond to a world that they themselves have placed under pressure. But his concerns are many, and literature, art and music are ever-present in a poetry that affirms the creative as a potential force for positive change. His embracing of many different poetic forms, along with a merging of the 'lyrical' and 'experimental', seeks to reinforce that diversity is to be celebrated. These volumes of poetry are a landmark addition to Australian literature.' (Publication summary)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Related Works
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y
Spirals : Collected Poems Volume Three (2014-2023)
Crawley
:
UWA Publishing
,
2024
27370230
2024
selected work
poetry
'Spirals is the third and final volume of John Kinsella's collected poems and dates from 2014-2023, seeing Kinsella through his fifties and without an end in sight. Spirals is not a case of a poet growing older, steadier, and more sedate but rather brings an ongoing sense of development that is also recursive and spatial. Politically, institutionally, and attitudinally, Kinsella remains an outsider.
'John Kinsella's poetry is collected in one place for the very first time and includes poems that have appeared in chapbooks, publications outside of Australia, and some that are no longer in print. In this final volume, the spiralling effects of time combined with Kinsella's probing and connections in space have brought his poetry an authority and a sense of being listened to not only with awe but with respect. And still, Kinsella renounces any inflated self. Instead of basting in a perversely satisfying white guilt, or retreating to a passive melancholy, Kinsella is active, dynamic, and even exuberant. His poetry is replete with astounding energy that is creative and forward-looking while remaining concerned about environmental damage, exploitations of neoliberalism and militarism, and the continuing illegitimacies of unacknowledged settler occupation. Kinsella's final volume marks the culmination. (Publication summary)
Works about this Work
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'The Heritage I Bring' : The Gargantuan Poetry of John Kinsella
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 454 2023; (p. 50)
— Review of The Ascension of Sheep : Collected Poems Volume One (1980-2005) 2022 selected work poetry'A quarter of a century has passed since Ivor Indyk contributed a scathing review of John Kinsella’s first collected poems to the pages of ABR (July 1997), and the contending responses to that opinion have typified the reception of his poetry among the vituperative local poetry community ever since. This extravagant representation of his work – two volumes of close to a thousand pages each, with a third volume pending – might seem almost deliberately designed to expose the author to similar criticism. Rather than a conventionally shaped collected edition, this is more like a throwing open of filing cabinets, and the nearly 1,700 pages presented so far are certainly not all masterpieces.' (Introduction)
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The Poem in the Parrot, the Boy in the Bird
2022
single work
essay
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 67 no. 2 2022; (p. 62-72) 'My son's first words are nearly all bird names. We give him a plastic duck when he lies on the change table, to try and distract him so he stays on his back, doesn't roll. One day we don't and he says, 'Duck, duck, duck'. The next week we are at the zoo, it is thirty-six degrees at 4Pm in the afternoon, we are regretting our choices until, walking through the wetland aviary, he points at the water: 'Duck, duck, duck' From there, we get `coco' for cockatoo, 'gaga' for galah, `bamingo' for flamingo, then goose, budgie, emu and peacock. Owl is said as in howl, like a bird struggling free from the throat of a wolf. ' (Introduction)
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The Poem as Pantechnicon, the Poet as Polymath : John Kinsella’s Boundless Creativity
2022
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 11 April 2022;
— Review of The Ascension of Sheep : Collected Poems Volume One (1980-2005) 2022 selected work poetry'University of Western Australia Publishing has just released the first of three volumes of John Kinsella’s Collected Poems.' (Introduction)
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The Poem as Pantechnicon, the Poet as Polymath : John Kinsella’s Boundless Creativity
2022
single work
column
— Appears in: The Conversation , 11 April 2022;
— Review of The Ascension of Sheep : Collected Poems Volume One (1980-2005) 2022 selected work poetry'University of Western Australia Publishing has just released the first of three volumes of John Kinsella’s Collected Poems.' (Introduction)
-
'The Heritage I Bring' : The Gargantuan Poetry of John Kinsella
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , June no. 454 2023; (p. 50)
— Review of The Ascension of Sheep : Collected Poems Volume One (1980-2005) 2022 selected work poetry'A quarter of a century has passed since Ivor Indyk contributed a scathing review of John Kinsella’s first collected poems to the pages of ABR (July 1997), and the contending responses to that opinion have typified the reception of his poetry among the vituperative local poetry community ever since. This extravagant representation of his work – two volumes of close to a thousand pages each, with a third volume pending – might seem almost deliberately designed to expose the author to similar criticism. Rather than a conventionally shaped collected edition, this is more like a throwing open of filing cabinets, and the nearly 1,700 pages presented so far are certainly not all masterpieces.' (Introduction)
-
The Poem in the Parrot, the Boy in the Bird
2022
single work
essay
— Appears in: Westerly , vol. 67 no. 2 2022; (p. 62-72) 'My son's first words are nearly all bird names. We give him a plastic duck when he lies on the change table, to try and distract him so he stays on his back, doesn't roll. One day we don't and he says, 'Duck, duck, duck'. The next week we are at the zoo, it is thirty-six degrees at 4Pm in the afternoon, we are regretting our choices until, walking through the wetland aviary, he points at the water: 'Duck, duck, duck' From there, we get `coco' for cockatoo, 'gaga' for galah, `bamingo' for flamingo, then goose, budgie, emu and peacock. Owl is said as in howl, like a bird struggling free from the throat of a wolf. ' (Introduction)
