"The Death of the Bird" (1955) is a poem by Australian poet A. D. Hope.
It was originally published in the poet's collection The Wandering Islands, and was subsequently reprinted in other collections by the poet as well as a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Critical reception
In reviewing the poet's back catalog critic Peter Craven noted that Hope is "the author of poems of great poignancy and delicacy that take a transient feature of nature and invest it with the face of a grief that is accepting but uncomforted. 'The Death of the Bird' is the most notable example and it is one of the finer short poems the 20th century produced."
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication in The Wandering Islands it was reprinted as follows:
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R. G. Howarth, Penguin Books, 1958 Australian Poets Speak edited by Colin Thiele and Ian Mudie, Rigby, 1961 Makar no. 7, June 1961 Modern Australian Verse edited by Douglas Stewart, Angus and Robertson, 1964 A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1968 Silence Into Song : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Clifford O'Brien, Rigby, 1968 Collected Poems 1930-1965 by A. D. Hope, Angus and Robertson, 1972 The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972 Selected Poems by A. D. Hope, Angus and Robertson, 1973 Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, Rigby, 1976 This World : An Anthology of Poetry for Young People edited by M. M. Flynn and J. Groom, Pergamon Press, 1976 The World's Contracted Thus edited by J. A. McKenzie and J. K. McKenzie, Heinemann Education, 1983 Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1984 My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985 An Anthology of Commonwealth Poetry edited by C. D. Narasimhaiah, Macmillan, 1990 The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, Faber, 1991 The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry edited by John Tranter and Philip Mead, Penguin, 1991 Selected Poems by A. D. Hope, edited by David Brooks, Angus and Robertson, 1992 An Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Ch'oe Chin-yong and Cynthia Van Den Driesen, Hansin Munhwasa, 1995 The Scythe Honed Fine : A.D. Hope, A Celebration for his 90th Birthday, National Library of Australia, 1997 A. D. Hope : Selected Poetry and Prose by A. D. Hope, edited by David Brooks, Halstead Press, 2000 Sunlines : An Anthology of Poetry to Celebrate Australia's Harmony in Diversity edited by Anne Fairbairn, Dept of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, 2002 Seven Centuries of Poetry in English edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 2003 The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella, Penguin, 2009 Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature edited by Nicholas Jose, Kerryn Goldsworthy, Anita Heiss, David McCooey, Peter Minter, Nicole Moore, and Elizabeth Webby, Allen and Unwin, 2009 Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray , University of NSW Press, 2011 Love is Strong as Death edited by Paul Kelly, Hamish Hamilton, 2019
Notes The full text of the poem is available on the Poetry Library archived website.
See also 1955 in Australian literature 1955 in poetry
References