• Source: Beach Burial

"Beach Burial" (1944) is a poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor.
It was originally published in Southerly journal in 1944, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
The poem was written around the time of the battle of El Alamein in 1942 while Slessor was a war correspondent. It reflects his experience of seeing dead seamen being pulled from the surf and buried in the sand in graves marked with a cross bearing the words "Unknown Seaman".




Critical reception


The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature called it a "fine poem which reflects the futility of war, it expresses the bewildered pity of battle-hardened troops as they perform rough and ready but deeply-tender last rites over the sodden, nameless corpses."
The Oxford Literary History of Australia stated that the poem was "notable for its formal experimentation with assonance, echo and half-rhyme."




Publication history


After the poem's initial publication in Southerly it was reprinted as follows:

Australian Poetry 1944 edited by R. G. Howarth (1945)
The Australasian Book News and Literary Journal vol. 2 no. 7, January 1948
An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1952
A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1956
Poems by Kenneth Slessor, Angus and Robertson, 1957
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by John Thompson, Kenneth Slessor and R. G. Howarth, Penguin Books, 1958
Modern Australian Verse edited by Douglas Stewart, Angus and Robertson, 1964
The Age, 29 October 1966, p23
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972
Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, 1976
The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabb, Melbourne University Press, 1980
The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981
Clubbing of the Gunfire : 101 Australian War Poems edited by Chris Wallace-Crabb and Peter Pierce, Melbourne University Press, 1984
My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985
Fighting Words : Australian War Writing edited by Carl Harrison-Ford, Lothian, 1986
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Mark O’Connor, Oxford University Press, 1988
Cross-Country : A Book of Australian Verse edited by John Barnes and Brian MacFarlane, Heinemann, 1988
The Sea Poems of Kenneth Slessor by Kenneth Slessor, Briundabella Press, 1990
The Penguin Book of Modern Australian Poetry edited by John Tranter and Philip Mead, Penguin, 1991
The Faber Book of Modern Australian Verse edited by Vincent Buckley, Faber, 1991
Australian Poetry in the Twentieth Century edited by Robert Gray and Geoffrey Lehmann, Heinemann, 1991
Fivefathers : Five Australian Poets of the Pre-Academic Era edited by Les Murray, Carcanet, 1994
The Voice of War : Poems of the Second World War : The Oasis Collection edited by Victor Selwyn, Penguin, 1995
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, State Library of NSW Press, 1996
Australian Verse : An Oxford Anthology edited by John Leonard, Oxford University Press, 1998
Two Centuries of Australian Poetry edited by Kathrine Bell, Gary Allen, 2007
The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella, Penguin, 2009
60 Classic Australian Poems edited by Geoff Page, University of NSW Press, 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
The Puncher & Wattmann Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Leonard, Puncher & Wattmann, 2009
Australian Poetry Since 1788 edited by Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray, University of NSW Press, 2011
The poem has also been translated into Greek (1986), Indonesian (1991), and Arabic (1999).




Notes


You can read the full text of the poem in The Age, 29 October 1966, p23 and also on the "All Poetry" website.




See also


1944 in Australian literature
1944 in poetry




References

Kata Kunci Pencarian:

• Anthony Perkins
• Daftar karya fiksi ilmiah bawah laut
• Edward VIII dari Britania Raya
• Kota New York
• Invasi Ukraina oleh Rusia
• Asher Brown Durand
• Lynn Merrick
• Foraminifera
• Benedict Arnold
• Daftar episode Beyond Belief: Fact or Fiction
• Beach Burial
• Garners Beach Burial Ground
• Burial at sea
• Dumas Beach
• Tumulus
• Ship burial
• Boynton Beach, Florida
• Hurricane of 1928 African-American Mass Burial Site
• Kenneth Slessor
• Mount Gravatt Cemetery and Crematorium