AustLit

This 'anthology of Australian poetry of the 1960s, was edited, with an introduction, by Rodney Hall and Thomas W. Shapcott. The keynote of these ‘new impulses’ was ‘a suspicion of idealism, and an inbred awareness of the consequences of totalitarian beliefs’. Authoritarianism in religion and politics was eschewed, as was the concept of national and international aggression. Major established poets such as Kenneth Slessor, Judith Wright and A. D. Hope are not represented because the editors felt that their poetry of the decade added little to their already defined stances. Their contemporaries, however, Gwen Harwood and Francis Webb, are given considerable space because they are important influences on younger poets.' (Source : The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature, online edition)

'Randolph Stow's slim body of poetry weighs more than most oeuvres many times its size. It has few equals anywhere in the world. Groundbreaking, historic and essential, it is haunting, lyrical, mythical, spiritual and anchored in place.' John Kinsella (Trove record)

Alternately prolific and silent, Randolph Stow won the Miles Franklin Literary Award in 1958 and the Patrick White Award in 1979. In The Land's Meaning, John Kinsella brings together selected works of one of Australia's finest modernist poets. Including previously uncollected pieces, the volume's wide ranging introduction provides a rich context for the work of this extraordinary and important poet in the most comprehensive collection of Stow's work to date. (Trove record)