"Beauty Imposes" is a poem by Australian poet John Shaw Neilson.
It was first published in the poet's collection Beauty Imposes : Some Recent Verse in 1938, and later in the poet's collections and other Australian poetry anthologies.
Further publications An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1952 Shaw Neilson edited by Judith Wright, Angus and Robertson, 1963 From the Ballads to Brennan edited by T. Inglis Moore, Angus & Robertson, 1964 The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972 Australia's Writers edited by Graeme Kinross-Smith, Nelson Books, 1980 The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, Nelson, 1984 My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985 John Shaw Neilson : Poetry, Autobiography and Correspondence edited by Cliff Hanna, University of Queensland Press, 1991 Selected Poems by John Shaw Neilson, Angus and Robertson, 1993 Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, Gary Allen, 2007 Collected Verse of John Shaw Neilson edited by Margaret Roberts, UWA Publishing, 2012
Notes In a letter sent to James Devaney on 20 January 1936 Neilson described this poem as "an attempt to describe in a few lines the thing that so many rhymers tackle. Beauty does create in us a strange wonderment and awe. It is difficult to describe in words the effect that a beautiful nude has upon one's feelings."John Shaw Neilson: The Collected Verse A Critical Edition, Edited from the Manuscripts by Margaret D. Roberts, Australian Scholarly Editions Centre, 2003. Volume III, pp 592-593
See also 1938 in poetry 1938 in literature 1938 in Australian literature Australian literature
References