Country Towns

"Country Towns" (1932) is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor.^[1]

It was originally published in the poet's collection Cuckooz Contrey, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.^[1]

In the UQP Studies in Australian Literature volume devoted to the poet, Kenneth Slessor : Critical Readings edited by Philip Mead, Vincent Buckley called this "the most sprightly of his short poems",^[2] and Peter Kirkpatrick referred to the poem's "dozy bucolic irony" being "possible because it is evocative of human spaces: towns."^[3]

While reviewing the poet's 1944 collection, One Hundred Poems : 1919-1939, in The Sydney Morning Herald, R. G. Howarth commented that with this poem "we have, all together, accurate observation, humour, and true poetry."^[4]

In his commentary about the poem in his essay "Some Notes on the Poems", included in his poetry collection Selected Poems (Angus and Robertson, 1988), Slessor stated: "It refers to no country town specifically but is a composite of many which have seemed the same. Its period is fading, or perhaps has already vanished, since farmers today prefer motors to mares and buggy-wheels are seldom heard."^[5]

After the poem's initial publication Cuckooz Contrey in 1932^[1] it was reprinted as follows:

• One Hundred Poems : 1919-1939 by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1944^[6]
• Poets of Australia : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1946^[7]
• An Australasian Anthology : Australian and New Zealand Poems edited by Percival Serle, R. H. Croll, and Frank Wilmot, Collins, 1946^[8]
• This Land of Ours : Australia edited by George Farwell and Frank H. Johnston, Angus and Robertson, 1949^[9]
• New Land, New Language : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1957^[10]
• Australian Poets Speak edited by Colin Thiele and Ian Mudie, Rigby, 1961^[11]
• Modern Australian Verse edited by Douglas Stewart, Angus and Robertson, 1964^[12]
• Songs for All Seasons : 100 Poems for Young People edited by Rosemary Dobson, Angus and Robertson, 1967^[13]
• Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968^[14]
• The Land's Meaning edited by L. M. Hannan and B. A. Breen, Macmillan, 1973^[15]
• Australia Fair : Poems and Paintings edited by Douglas Stewart, Ure Smith, 1974^[16]
• Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1975^[17]
• Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, 1976^[18]
• The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981^[19]
• The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, Nelson, 1984^[20]
• My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985^[21]
• The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, Faber, 1991^[22]
• Kenneth Slessor : Poetry, Essays, War Despatches, War Diaries, Journalism, Autobiographical Material and Letters edited by Dennis Haskell, University of Queensland Press, 1991^[23]
• A Treasury of Bush Verse edited by G. A. Wilkes, Angus and Robertson, 1991^[24]
• Kenneth Slessor : Collected Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1994^[25]
• Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 1994^[26]
• Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998^[27]
• Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, Gary Allen, 2007^[1]
• The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009^[28]
• Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011^[29]

The poem was also translated into Esperanto in 1988.^[1]

• The full text of the poem is available on the All Poetry website.^[30]
• Poet David Rowbotham, in his column Chronicle Arcade in 1952, for The Toowoomba Chronicle and Darling Downs Gazette, referred to a line from the poem: "Public-houses of yellow wood with '1860' over their doors," noting that one such pub exists in Yetman, New South Wales.^[31]

• 1932 in Australian literature
• 1932 in poetry