Poetry
The Wandering Islands
Alec Derwent Hope · 1955
Synopsis
The first collection by its author, in regular, rhymed stanzas. In “Imperial Adam”, eleven quatrains retell Genesis: Yahweh gives Eve to Adam, and the poem lingers on their first embrace, under the gaze of the garden's beasts, with a profusion of images of fruit and fertility. “Australia” carries a satire of the country, and other pieces take up myths, such as “The End of the Journey”; eNotes notes in the book eroticism, satire of modern life and the dual nature of love.
Context
The collection appeared in Sydney in 1955 from Edwards and Shaw, after a publication delayed by fears aroused by its erotic and satirical verse; a fire had destroyed most of the author's early manuscripts. It was his first book of poems to reach the general public, and it received the Grace Leven Prize in 1956. His verse was widely taught from the sixties onwards, before young poets came to see him, in the seventies, as a traditionalist.
Who it is for
Poems in English, in regular metres; several assume a knowledge of the Bible and Greek mythology.
Prizes and reception
The first book of an author who became, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the most widely recognised Australian poet abroad in his time.