Poetry
The Music of Division
Chris Wallace-Crabbe · 1959
Synopsis
The author's first collection. In “Citizen”, the most discussed poem, a disgruntled commuter crosses the traffic to reach his work and the satisfied crowd of the city, to which the final lines are addressed, according to Michael Sharkey. The most notable poems, according to the Contemporary Poets entry reproduced by Encyclopedia.com, observe political forces and their effect on individuals caught between public and private responses.
Context
Written, according to the Rochford Street Review, during its author's final year of study, the collection appeared in Sydney in 1959 from Angus and Robertson, in the series Modern Australian Poets, in fifty-eight pages. The author had received the John Masefield Prize for poetry in 1958. Thomas Shapcott notes that the book shuns the exuberance expected of a young poet and shows a detached coldness that heralds the sixties rather than the romantic fifties.
Who it is for
Some sixty pages in English, in short, tightly written pieces; no French translation.
Prizes and reception
For Michael Sharkey, a first book with an acerbic tone, one poem of which, “Citizen”, was much discussed.
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