Written 1939 Country Australia Publication date 1939 | First published in Five Bells : XX Poems Language English | |
"Five Bells" (1939) is a meditative poem by Australian poet Kenneth Slessor. It was originally published as the title poem in the author's collection Five Bells : XX Poems, and later appeared in numerous poetry anthologies.
Contents
Outline
The poem is a meditative piece based on a ship's bell ringing five bells - which occurs at either 10:30am or 10:30 pm. The poem is a reflection of the death of Slessor's friend Joe Lynch who drowned in Sydney Harbour in 1927.
Reviews
In her essay "'Living Backward' : Slessor and Masculine Elegy" (1997) Kate Lilley noted: "Chronologically displaced, “Five Bells” is repositioned and reread as the generically appropriate marker of the premature end of Slessor's career, and also as the aesthetically satisfying rhetorical proof of his poetic achievement. But the discursive meaning and affect generated by, and attributed to, Slessor's elegy exceed the boundaries of even the most expansive consideration of Slessor as poet, while also being disconnected from an analysis of genre."
The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature stated: "Although the emphasis is on the impermanence of all human relationships and thus the triumph of time (moved by 'little fidget wheels') over life, the affection exposed for the scruffy, unruly, unimportant Irishman gives the poem a tender and human character."