FALS: Cleveland Bay New Writing No 3: Love and the Outer World, Selected Poems by RG Hay

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Love and the Outer World, Selected Poems by RG Hay, 1984

In 1968 R.G. Hay was described as a widely published young Queensland poet. In the past sixteen years he has written steadily and been published even more widely, and a selection of his poems now makes a timely appearance. Although Hay's work takes some of its character from his native Central and Northern Queensland where he has lived for most of his life, he thinks of himself not as a regional but as an Australian poet. Reading Love and the Outer World we are struck by the unique Australian tone of Hay's voice as the poems move from one form to another. With an academic background, and writing criticism himself, Hay commands an overview of the possibilities available to poetry in the English language. Each poem here finds a place within a different mode of these possibilities, but the distinctive timbre of the poet's mind ensures that no poem merely echoes, however elegantly or drily, the traditional mode. Rather, like all good poets, in shaping language and form to his needs he extends the possibilities of Australian poetry.

Published: 2016-05-25