Afterimages (poetry collection)

Afterimages
AuthorRobert Gray
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry collection
PublisherDuffy and Snellgrove
Publication date
2002
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages76 pp.
Awards2002 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, winner
ISBN1876631228

Afterimages is a collection of poems by Australian poet Robert Gray, published by Duffy and Snellgrove in Australia in 2002.[1]

The collection contains 25 poems from a variety of sources, with some published here for the first time.[2]

The collection won the 2002 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry,[3] and the 2002 The Age Book of the Year Awards – Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize.[4]

Contents

  • "Gardenias"
  • "Summer, Summer"
  • "A Poem of Not More Than Forty Lines on the Subject of Nature"
  • "A Country Churchyard"
  • "Visiting in Fife"
  • "Chameleon"
  • "Vacancies"
  • "The Dying Light"
  • "Thomas Hardy"
  • "The Street"
  • "In the Mallee"
  • "Damp Evening"
  • "14 Poems [(Short Poems)]"
  • "Days of '71"
  • "Cyclone"
  • "Xanadu in Argyll"
  • "Flemington Races"
  • "A Bowl of Pears"
  • "The Drift of Things"
  • "Homage to the Painters"
  • "Headland"
  • "The Fishermen"
  • "In Dappled..."
  • "Shack and Pine Tree"
  • "Home Run"

Critical reception

Writing in Australian Book Review Martin Duwell noted a particular theme in the collection: "the unavoidable recurrent image in Afterimages is that of rain. It is a book where rain can appear as a cyclonic rage against an ugly mercantilism ("Cyclone") or as the setting for a guilt-ridden, pre-dawn meditation ("Chameleon"). It seems that rain symbolises the downward drift of things, not towards entropy – because everything is continuously recombined – but towards death.[5]

Steve Evans, in Text magazine, wasn't completely convinced by the collection: Afterimages presents a poet stil critically concerned with the imtertwining of the physical and the spiritual...there is plenty of material in Afterimages to gratify both existing fans and those recently discovering Robert Gray's poetry."[6]

Awards

See also

References

  1. ^ "Afterimages by Robert Gray". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 22 November 2025.
  2. ^ "Austlit — Afterimages by Robert Gray". Austlit. Retrieved 22 November 2025.
  3. ^ a b ""Book of Fish lands a premier catch"". The Age, 12 November 2002, p7. ProQuest 363612212. Retrieved 7 February 2025.
  4. ^ a b ""Man of many words wins Age book award"". The Age, 24 August 2002, p13. ProQuest 363477476. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
  5. ^ ""Afterimages by Robert Gray"". Australian Book Review, May 2002. Retrieved 22 November 2025.
  6. ^ ""The Fullness of Reality review by Steve Evans"". Text, October 2003, pp10-13. Retrieved 22 November 2025.
  7. ^ "Austlit — Afterimages by Robert Gray — Awards". Austlit. Retrieved 22 November 2025.
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