Kenneth Slessor

Kenneth Slessor (1901-1971) in 1940. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Kenneth Adolf Slessor OBE (27 March 1901 - 30 June 1971) was an Australian poet and journalist. He was one of Australia's leading poets, notable particularly for the absorption of modernist influences into Australian poetry.

Life

Youth

Slessor was born Kenneth Adolphe Schloesser in Orange, New South Wales. His family moved to Sydney in 1903. Slessor attended Mowbray House School (1910-1914) and the Sydney Church of England Grammar School (1915-1918), where he began to write poetry. His first published poem was in 1917 about a digger in Europe, remembering Sydney and its icons.

Slessor received his Leaving Certificate in 1918 and joined the Sydney Sun as a journalist. In 1919, 7 of his poems were published. Slessor married Noela Glasson, who was 28, on 18 August 1922. They lived in Chatswood, New South Wales.

Career

Slessor made his living as a newspaper journalist, mostly for the Sydney Sun, and was a war correspondent during World War II (1939-1945). Slessor counted Norman Lindsay, Hugh McCrae and Jack Lindsay among his friends.

In 1965, Australian writer Hal Porter wrote of having met and stayed with Slessor in the 1930s. He described Slessor as "a city lover, fastidious and excessively courteous, in those qualities resembles Baudelaire, as he does in being incapable of sentimentalizing over vegetation, in finding in nature something cruel, something bordering on effrontery. He prefers chiselled stone to the disorganization of grass".

Slessor also wrote on rugby league football for the popular publication Smith's Weekly.

Writing

The bulk of Slessor's poetic work was produced before the end of the Second World War. His poem "Five Bells" - relating to Sydney Harbour, time, the past, memory, and the death of the artist, friend and colleague of Slessor atSmith's Weekly, Joe Lynch- remains probably his best known poem, followed by "Beach Burial", a tribute to Australian troops who fought in World War II.

Recognition

In the New Year's Honours of 1959, Slessor was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for services to literature.

He is commemorated by the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry.

Slessor has a street in the Canberra suburb of McKellar named after him.

In popular culture

The bells motif in "Five Bells" is referenced at the end of the 1999 song "You Gotta Love This City" by The Whitlams, which also involves a drowning death in Sydney Harbour.

Publications

Poetry

• Thief of the Moon. Sydney: John Kirtley, 1924.
• Earth-Visitors: Poems (illustrated by Norman Lindsay). London: Fanfrolico Press, 1926.
• Trio: A Book of Poems (by Kenneth Slessor, Harley Matthews, & Colin Simpson). Sydney: Sunnybrook Press, 1931.
• Cuckooz Contrey (illustrated by Norman Lindsay). Syndey: Frank Johnson, 1932.
• Darlinghurst Nights, and Morning Glories: Being 47 strange sights observed from eleventh storeys, in a Land of cream puffs and crime, by a flat-foofed professor; and here set forth in sketch and rhyme (illustrated by Virgil Reilly). Sydney: Frank Johnson, 1933; Sydney & London: Angus & Robertson, 1981.
• Five Bells: XX poems (illustrated by Norman Lindsay). Sydney: Frank Johnson, 1939.
• One Hundred Poems, 1919–1939. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1944.
• Poems. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1957.
• Life at the Cross (with photos by Robert Walker). Adelaide: Rigby, 1965.
• Canberra. Adelaide: Rigby, 1966.
• Selected Poems. London & Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1975.
• Backless Betty from Bondi (edited by Julian Croft). Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1983.
• The Sea Poems of Kenneth Slessor (edited by Mike Hudson, Dennis Haskell, & A.T. Bolton). Canberra: Officina Brindabella, 1990.
• Collected Poems. Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1994.

Non-fiction

• The Grapes are Growing: The story of Australian wine. Sydney: Australian Wine Board, 1963.
• Bread and Wine: Selected prose (edited by Dennis Haskell & Geoffrey Dutton). Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1970.
• The War Despatches of Kenneth Slessor, Official Australian Correspondent, 1940-1944 (edited by Clement Semmler). St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1987.

Juvenile=

• Funny Farmyard: Nursery rhymes and painting book (illustrated by Sydney Harry Miller). Sydney: Frank Johnson, 1933.

Collected editions

• Kenneth Slessor: Poetry, essays, war dispatches, war diaries, journalism, autobiographical material, and letters (edited by Dennis Haskell). St. Lucia, Qld.: University of Queensland Press, 1991.

Edited

• The Penguin Book of Australian Verse (edited with R.G. Howarth & John Thompson). Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1958.
• The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Verse (edited with R.G. Howarth & John Thompson). Harmondsworth, UK, & Ringwood, Vic: Penguin, 1961.

Journals

• The War Diaries of Kenneth Slessor, Official Australian Correspondent, 1940-1944 (edited by Clement Semmler). St. Lucia, Qld: University of Queensland Press, 1985.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Australian poets

References

• Hal Porter, "Melbourne in the Thirties", The London Magazine 5:6 (September 1965, 31-47.

External links

Poems

• Kenneth Slessor 1901-1971 at the Poetry Foundation.
• Kenneth Slessor (1901-1971) in the Australian Poetry Library (71 poems).
• Kenneth Slessor at PoemHunter (72 poems).

Audio / video

• Kenneth Slessor at YouTube

About

• Kenneth Slessor (1901-1971) at Australian Authors.
• Kenneth Slessor at AustLit
• Slessor, Kenneth Adolf (1901–1971) in the Australian Dictionary of Biography.
• "Kenneth Slessor's Importance" by Clive James

Etc.

• National Library of Australia - Papers of Kenneth Adolf Slessor (1901-1971)