The Wild Reciter: Poetry and Popular Culture in Australia 1890-2020

Just over a century ago poetry was all the rage in Australia. Newspapers and magazines published it, entertainers and elocutionists performed it on stages across the country, and ordinary Australians recited it in schools, local halls and suburban parlours. Yet this communal experience of poetry has now largely disappeared. In The Wild Reciter Peter Kirkpatrick examines how this change occurred by exploring the shifting relationships between poetry and popular culture, and in particular the arrival of new media, taking the reader from ‘penny readings’ and vaudeville to slam and Instapoetry.

Many extraordinary yet wholly forgotten works are brought to light, while some well-known poems and their authors receive a critical makeover. ‘The Man from Snowy River’ encounters the Wild West; Lesbia Harford turns singer-songwriter; Kenneth Slessor finds his groove; Yevgeny Yevtushenko blows up the Adelaide Festival; rock music inspires both John Laws and the Generation of ’68; Dorothy Porter resorts to crime fiction; and Clive James abandons media fame for poetic glory. This pioneering study reimagines the history of Australian verse to arrive at a more expansive notion of poetry.