A Late Picking: Poems 1965–1974

A Late Picking: Poems 1965–1974
AuthorA. D. Hope
LanguageEnglish
PublisherAngus and Robertson
Publication date
1975
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint (Hardback)
Pages94 pp
ISBN0207132801
Preceded bySelected Poems 
Followed byA Book of Answers 

A Late Picking: Poems 1965–1974 is the collection of poems by Australian poet A. D. Hope. It was published in hardback by Angus and Robertson in Sydney in 1975.[1]

The anthology includes 39 poems by the author.[2]

Contents

  • "On an Early Photograph of My Mother"
  • "A Letter to David Campbell on the Birthday of W.B. Yeats, 1965"
  • "Patch and Mend"
  • "Poor Charley's Dream"
  • "Croesus and Lais"
  • "Pervigilium Veneris"
  • "Apollo and Daphne: I"
  • "A Windy Afternoon"
  • "Exercise on a Sphere"
  • "The Sacred Way"
  • "Clover Honey"
  • "Zion's Children"
  • "Dialogue"
  • "Winterreise"
  • "The Countess of Pembroke's Dream: The Countess of Pembroke's Dream"
  • "The Countess of Pembroke's Dream: The Dream"
  • "The Countess of Pembroke's Dream: The Dream Within the Dream"
  • "What the Serpent Really Said"
  • "The Invaders"
  • "Under Sedation"
  • "Parabola"
  • "Gauguin's Menhir, Tahiti"
  • "Speak, Parrot!"
  • "Adam Ben Googol"
  • "Nu Nubile"
  • "Palingenesia"
  • "Hay Fever"
  • "Country Places: Hell, Hay and Booligal!"
  • "Under the Weather"
  • "O Be A Fine Girl..."
  • "The Mystic Marriage of St. Catherine of Alexandria"
  • "Apollo and Daphne, II"
  • "The First-born"
  • "Mokraya Kuritsa"
  • "Tiger Thoughts"
  • "In Memoriam: Osip Mandelstam, December 1938"
  • "The Wild Bees: Potnia, Thesmophore, Chrysanion..."
  • "In Memoriam: Gertrud Kolmar, 1943"
  • "Spatlese"

Critical reception

Geoff Page writing in The Canberra Times noted that the collection "in general confirms long-held impressions of Hope: the dry detached amusement, the steady quatrains, 'the long isolation of the heart', the erudition (both scientific and literary), the old man still savouring sensual joys. A few poems set you back slightly. They're still Hope but in genres you wouldn't have thought his temperament would come to: for example, 'Hay Fever', (a kind of carpe diem poem which almost becomes a pastoral lyric); an elegy for Osip Mandelstam (an artist one would not have thought much to Hope's Augustan tastes); 'Winterreise' (a straight medieval lyric) or 'Dialogue' (a placid accepting love poem in no way touched with either irony or sexual energy)."[3]

Publication history

The poetry collection was also published by Wentworth Press in a limited edition of 60 copies.[2]

Awards

The collection won both 1976 The Age Book of the Year awards for Best Fiction and Best Book of the Year.[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ "A Late Picking by A. D. Hope". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 12 May 2024.
  2. ^ a b A. D. Hope. A Late Picking: Poems 1965–1974. Austlit. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  3. ^ ""The Poets of Canberra"". The Canberra Times. 9 January 1976. p. 6. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
  4. ^ "'AGE' award to historian, poet". The Age. 24 November 1976. ProQuest 2520883088. Retrieved 12 May 2024.