| Author | Robert Gray |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Poetry collection |
| Publisher | Heinemann |
Publication date | 1993 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 81 pp. |
| Awards | 1994 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, winner |
| ISBN | 0855615060 |
Certain Things is a collection of poems by Australian poet Robert Gray, published by Heinemann in Australia in 1993.[1]
The collection contains 37 poems from a variety of sources, with some published here for the first time.[2]
The collection won the 1994 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry.[3]
Contents
[edit]- "Currawongs"
- "13th May (at Ted's)"
- "Harmonica"
- "The Pines"
- "Travelling"
- "The Girls"
- "(Traditional)"
- "Renga"
- "In Thin Air"
- "The Room"
- "A Testimony"
- "The West"
- "Wintry Evenings"
- "Descent"
- "Malthusian Island"
- "Landscape"
- "Doodling"
- "The White Roads"
- "Souvenir"
- "[Untitled] (from The Gift)"
- "Impromptus"
- "N.M.G."
- "On South Head"
- "Small Hours"
- "On a Forestry Trail"
- "The Life of a Chinese Poet"
- "Shard"
- "Outside (Going Outside)"
- "Arrivals and Departures"
- "Stanzas"
- "Today"
- "Illusions"
- "Dawn"
- "The South Coast, While Looking for a House"
- "In One Ear ..."
- "Afternoon Walk"
- "The Hawkesbury River"
Critical reception
[edit]Kevin Hart, writing in The Age, noted that Gray was continuing his examination of his recent themes, meditating "on the contingencies of nature – of the self and nature as nothing other than contingencies." he also noted that in the poet's best poems "we sense, behind the melancholy and even behind the nobility of voice, a principled affirmation of existence."[4]
Awards
[edit]See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "Certain Things by Robert Gray". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ "Austlit — Certain Things by Robert Gray". Austlit. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ a b ""Opera critic writes a winner"". The Age, 15 October 1994, p8. ProQuest 2521649019. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
- ^ ""Materialist mysticism"". The Age, 5 February 1994. ProQuest 2521642439. Retrieved 21 November 2025.