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The Shadow of Fire sequence   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 1994... 1994 The Shadow of Fire
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Notes

  • 12 poems written in the ghazel form.

Includes

Rockface i "Of the age-long heave of a cliff-face, all's come down", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; Mapped but Not Known : The Australian Landscape of the Imagination : Essays and Poems Presented to Brian Elliott LXXV 11 April 1985 1986; (p. 50) A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 234-235) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 340) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 420) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 12)
Rockpool i "My generation is dying, after long lives", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 235) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 340-341) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 419) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 12-13)
Eyes i "At the end of winter my self-sown vine sends up", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 236) The Macmillan Anthology of Australian Literature 1990; (p. 54) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 341) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 419-420) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 13)
Summer i "This place's quality is not its former nature", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 236-237) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 341-342) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 421) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 13-14) Family Ties : Australian Poems of the Family 1998; (p. 216)
Connections i "The tiny clusters of whitebeard heath are in flower:", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 237) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 342-343) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 421-422) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 14)
Memory i "Yesterday wrapped me in wool; today drought's changeable weather", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 238-239) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 344) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 423) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 15) Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature 2009; (p. 599)
Skins i "This pair of skin gloves is sixty-six years old,", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; Contemporary Australian Poetry : An Anthology 1990; (p. 17) A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 239) The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry 1991; (p. 66) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 344-345) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 423)
Dust i "In my sixty-eighth year drought stopped the song of the rivers,", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 239-240) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 345) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 424) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 15-16) Windchimes : Asia in Australian Poetry 2006; (p. 96)
Pressures i "Winter gales, spring gales, summer - under such pressures", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 240) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 345-346) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 424) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 16)
Winter i "Today's white fog won't rise above the tree-tops.", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 240-241) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 346-347) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 425) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 16-17)
Patterns i ""Brighter than a thousand suns" - that blinding glare", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 241-242) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 347-348) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 426) Bridgings : Readings in Australian Women's Poetry 1996; (p. 17)
Oppositions i "Today I was caught alone in a summer storm", Judith Wright , 1985 single work poetry
— Appears in: Phantom Dwelling 1985; Kiwi and Emu : An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Australian and New Zealand Women 1989; (p. 250-257) Contemporary Australian Poetry : An Anthology 1990; (p. 17) A Human Pattern : Selected Poems 1990; (p. 238) Outrider : A Journal of Multicultural Literature in Australia , vol. 10 no. 1993; (p. 343-344) Collected Poems 1942-1985 1994; (p. 422)

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

Works about this Work

Ghazal as a Transnational Space; Ghazal as Endgame : Judith Wright’s “Shadow of Fire Anne Collett , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Spaces : India and Australia 2021; (p. 69-86)

'Judith Wright is celebrated as a quintessentially Australian literary figure. Her poetry engages with the land, with her ‘white settler’ farming family and its problematic historical relationship to Indigenous people, and with environmental issues. Despite living almost exclusively within one nation space, Wright’s mental spaces included transnational exchanges. This chapter tracks one line of cultural influence involving an Australian religious movement with links to India, translations of Hafiz in England and the adaptation of a Persian poetic form, the ghazal, in Wright’s later work.'

Source: Abstract.

Judith Wright's The Shadow of Fire and Making the Ghazal Appropriate for Australia Darius Sepehri , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 76 no. 3 2017; (p. 184-210)

'Judith Wright was in search of reconciliation. She had long been searching for older cultural forms that could be made suitable to express modern Australian life, and, now, as her long writing life was waning, she was also in search of a new literary identity and a contemplative poetic form. One of the fruits of this search was Wright's decision to write a dozen of her last poems in the form of the ghazal, which is common to Persian, Arabic, and Urdu literature. These dozen poems are entitled The Shadow of Fire: Ghazals, and come at the end of Phantom Dwelling, published in 1985. In her Collected Poems, 1942-1985, these are the poems that are placed at the end of the book. In a sense, they are the terminus of her poetry; she published nothing more between 1985 and and her death in 2000. That the last sequence of Eastern poetic format, and specifically by Persian poetry and the work and thought of Hafez of Shiraz, is considerable. Her Shadow of Fire sequence thus stands as a very significant event in the history of literary transaction between  Australian and Persian cultures.' (184)

The Australian Ghazal: Reading Judith Wright Anisur Rahman , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Interfaces 2004; (p. 84-92) Australian Studies Now : An Introductory Reader in Australian Studies 2007; (p. 61-70)
Rahman argues that in writing 'The Shadow of Fire' sequence, Wright exhibited a 'major variation on the style of her later poetry. In writing her ghazal she has written a new kind of poem, and in writing that poem she has evolved a new ghazal.'
The Australian Ghazal: Reading Judith Wright Anisur Rahman , 2004 single work criticism
— Appears in: Cultural Interfaces 2004; (p. 84-92) Australian Studies Now : An Introductory Reader in Australian Studies 2007; (p. 61-70)
Rahman argues that in writing 'The Shadow of Fire' sequence, Wright exhibited a 'major variation on the style of her later poetry. In writing her ghazal she has written a new kind of poem, and in writing that poem she has evolved a new ghazal.'
Judith Wright's The Shadow of Fire and Making the Ghazal Appropriate for Australia Darius Sepehri , 2017 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 76 no. 3 2017; (p. 184-210)

'Judith Wright was in search of reconciliation. She had long been searching for older cultural forms that could be made suitable to express modern Australian life, and, now, as her long writing life was waning, she was also in search of a new literary identity and a contemplative poetic form. One of the fruits of this search was Wright's decision to write a dozen of her last poems in the form of the ghazal, which is common to Persian, Arabic, and Urdu literature. These dozen poems are entitled The Shadow of Fire: Ghazals, and come at the end of Phantom Dwelling, published in 1985. In her Collected Poems, 1942-1985, these are the poems that are placed at the end of the book. In a sense, they are the terminus of her poetry; she published nothing more between 1985 and and her death in 2000. That the last sequence of Eastern poetic format, and specifically by Persian poetry and the work and thought of Hafez of Shiraz, is considerable. Her Shadow of Fire sequence thus stands as a very significant event in the history of literary transaction between  Australian and Persian cultures.' (184)

Ghazal as a Transnational Space; Ghazal as Endgame : Judith Wright’s “Shadow of Fire Anne Collett , 2021 single work criticism
— Appears in: Transnational Spaces : India and Australia 2021; (p. 69-86)

'Judith Wright is celebrated as a quintessentially Australian literary figure. Her poetry engages with the land, with her ‘white settler’ farming family and its problematic historical relationship to Indigenous people, and with environmental issues. Despite living almost exclusively within one nation space, Wright’s mental spaces included transnational exchanges. This chapter tracks one line of cultural influence involving an Australian religious movement with links to India, translations of Hafiz in England and the adaptation of a Persian poetic form, the ghazal, in Wright’s later work.'

Source: Abstract.

Last amended 15 Apr 2004 17:21:15
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