The New Arcadia: Poems

by John Kinsella

Overview

One of Australia's best poets conjures the Australian countryside in this brilliant epic, inspired by Philip Sidney's classic pastoral "Arcadia."

“Astonishingly fecund and inventive. The New Arcadia revitalizes pastoral traditions, but more in the mode of lamentation than celebration. Like Frost’s New Hampshire and Vermont, Kinsella’s Western Australia is eroded, a last act salted with the ruins of our age, and yet yielding permanent poems.”—Harold Bloom

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393247428
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/25/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
File size:	397 KB

About the Author

John Kinsella is the author of more than thirty books. He is a fellow of Churchill College, University of Cambridge, and emeritus professor of literature and environment at Curtin University. He lives at Jam Tree Gully in the Western Australian wheatbelt.

Table of Contents

Act 1
Reflectors: Drive 1     3
Pythic Small Birds...     10
A Front Approaches     11
Rain Gauge     12
Cleaning the New Rainwater Tank During the Onset of an Electrical Storm...     13
Scene     13
Summary     15
Ellipsis     15
Descriptive Pause     16
The Swing     17
The Rural Stage     18
No Moment is Wasted     19
The Sword of Aesculapius     20
Tilt     21
They say of bats...     22
Extreme Conditions Occasion the Fox     23
Dead Wood and Scorpions     24
The Bungarra Goanna     25
180 Degrees of Separation     26
Telephone Paddock     28
Occasion at Variance with the Word     30
The Top Bush     31
Pollen     32
A Version of the New Arcadia     33
Warning-Snakes (reprise)     36
The Brothers: A Monologic Eclogue     37
Act 2
Reflectors: Drive 2     45
Clearing the Dead Long Grass     51
From Qualandary Crossing to Yenyenning Lakes: a pastoral     57
Against Conflation     55
White Cockatoos     56
White-Faced Heron     57
An occasion to confirm again...     58
Silver-Eyes     59
Swallow     60
Eagle     60
Willy Wagtail     61
Conspiracy     62
Elegant Parrots/Wal-byne     63
Another Way of Seeing a Red-Capped Robin     64
Twenty-Eight Parrot Double Sonnet Hymn and Eulogy     65
On Not Seeing the Crested Bellbird at Duck Pool Reserve, Mortlock River: a graphologia     66
Exchange-Vit. D Hunger     67
The Task: Distraction and Hawk     68
Roadkill shock rocks the galah's world...     69
The Cull     70
The Mulga-Eucalypt Line     71
Eclogue of the Birds     72
Act 3
Reflectors: Drive 3     79
Arcadia Agonistes     85
Crop Duster     86
Breaking the Bonds     87
Another drought year...     88
Changing the Fenceline     89
Going to Seed: enjambed     90
Scythe     91
Whipper Snipper     92
Firestorm     94
Location     94
Vista Overload: Traversing Atmospherics     95
Eclogue of Presence     96
Wandoo Score     101
Survey     102
A Defining Moment     103
Sad Cow Poems     104
Night Moment     111
Mowing     112
Crop Duster Jerk-off: a poetry of abuse     113
The Shitheads of Spray     114
A Swarm of Paragliders     115
Rodeo     116
Vigilante Eclogue     118
Reflectors: Drive 4     125
Map: land subjected to inundation     131
York-Spencer's Brook Road     133
Quellington Road     136
Mokine Road     137
Borrow Pit     139
Redneck Refutation     142
Home     143
Malapropisms, Homophones, and Synonyms     143
'Killed by the Fall of a Tree...'     145
Feeders     146
At the Base of the Hill     147
High Point     148
Oral Languages     149
Fatigues     151
The Damage Done     154
'Once a Farm Boy, Always a Farm Boy': a global positioning eclogue     155
The Last Act (5)
Reflectors: Drive 5
Part I      161
Part II     165
Confession     169
Salt is Part of the Environment     171
Salt Semi-Ode     172
Salt is the residue of hauntings     173
Dusk and the Body Politic     174
Hives     174
Like slivers of glass...     175
Under the volcano     177
Site     178
Glow     179
Death of a Brushtail Possum     180
Surface Histories: A Town in the Wheatbelt     181
'Hung Like a Horse'     193
The Wedding Eclogue     194
Envoy
Among the murk I will find things to worship     201

Editorial Reviews

In this inspired and carefully constructed epic poem, well-regarded Australian poet Kinsella (Peripheral Light) pays homage to the country's western wheat-belt landscape. Reminiscent of Philip Sidney's classic pastoral, "Arcadia," the poem teems with images of the region's unspoiled natural beauty juxtaposed against countless intrusions by humans, such as pesticides, soil erosion, and the disappearance of native peoples. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.

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