Some thoughts on ‘Last Poems’ by Vincent Buckley

The major concerns of Buckley at the end in this collection. Dying. Looking at one life from the point near death. Memory. Honour. Inevitability.

Place. Mood and sensuality of place. Australian cities. Sense of moving into or away from a place. And especially Ireland.

The creation of poetry. How the voice speaks and sounds. The Irish voice (but, notice, not the Australian voice much). And then, music.

Politics of all kinds. Literary politics (his game). Irish politics. War.

Family life. The ancestors. The present generation. What the future holds. Relationships within the family. The fears of women. Privacy.

Civilization. Human interaction. Human respect. The public domain. Ethical questions, discussed with careful passion or with satire or with irony.

Physicality. Uncomfortableness. The restlessness of the body. The coming to terms with materials.

Meaning. Finding “some place in a story.”

The personal concerns. Notice the voice is nearly always his voice, Vin’s voice.

Entry in Notebooks, 17-18^th July 1989, after first encounters with this new poetry

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READINGS OF THE WORK BY PHILIP HARVEY

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