Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry
- The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Language, Text and Colony
- 2 British Speculations on Terra Australis and Romantic-Period Poetry
- 3 Poetry in the Penal Colony
- 4 Becoming Distinct
- 5 The Many-Voiced Charles Harpur
- 6 Anonymity and the Popular
- 7 Settler Labour Poetics and the National Imaginary at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
- 8 Children’s Poetry from 1840 to 1950
- 9 Australian Poetries of War and Conflict
- 10 ‘Poetry Is Its Own Advertisement’
- 11 The New Woman and Poetry (1885–1935)
- 12 Women Poets, Mobility and Being ‘In Between’
- 13 Fin-de-Siècle Symbolism and After
- 14 Kenneth Slessor’s Visualism
- 15 Surrealism and Australian Poetry
- 16 Gum Tears Which Are Also Real
- 17 The Mid Century Canon
- 18 Judith Wright
- 19 Oodgeroo Noonuccal
- 20 Aboriginal Song as Australian Poetry
- 21 Re-Imagining Place (1940–1990)
- 22 Australian Poetry and the Rise of a Suburban Quotidian (1950–2000)
- 23 The Three Ontologies of Regional Poetry
- 24 The Poetry of Antarctica
- 25 Poetry and the State (1945 to the Present)
- 26 Australian Expatriate Poets
- 27 Les Murray
- 28 Religion and Poetry in Australia
- 29 Francis Webb
- 30 Australian Poetry and Post-War Immigration from Europe
- 31 The Long 1970s and Print Culture
- 32 Australian Poets of the 1980s
- 33 Activism and the Eruption of Aboriginal Writing
- 34 Reading the Archive of Australian Feminist Poetry since 1970
- 35 Queer Poetry in Australia
- 36 Between Identity and Form
- 37 Poetry of the South West Asian and North African Diasporas
- 38 Transcultural Relations with Latin America
- 39 Performance Poetries
- 40 Long Form Poetry from the 1980s to the Present
- 41 From Conceptual to Concrete (1960–2020)
- 42 The Digital Era
- 43 The Earth Has Been Done
- 44 Contemporary Anthologies and the Question of Canonicity
- 45 New Dynamics in Twenty-First-Century Anthologies
- Index
- References
24 - The Poetry of Antarctica
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 November 2025
Book contents
- The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry
- The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Language, Text and Colony
- 2 British Speculations on Terra Australis and Romantic-Period Poetry
- 3 Poetry in the Penal Colony
- 4 Becoming Distinct
- 5 The Many-Voiced Charles Harpur
- 6 Anonymity and the Popular
- 7 Settler Labour Poetics and the National Imaginary at the Turn of the Twentieth Century
- 8 Children’s Poetry from 1840 to 1950
- 9 Australian Poetries of War and Conflict
- 10 ‘Poetry Is Its Own Advertisement’
- 11 The New Woman and Poetry (1885–1935)
- 12 Women Poets, Mobility and Being ‘In Between’
- 13 Fin-de-Siècle Symbolism and After
- 14 Kenneth Slessor’s Visualism
- 15 Surrealism and Australian Poetry
- 16 Gum Tears Which Are Also Real
- 17 The Mid Century Canon
- 18 Judith Wright
- 19 Oodgeroo Noonuccal
- 20 Aboriginal Song as Australian Poetry
- 21 Re-Imagining Place (1940–1990)
- 22 Australian Poetry and the Rise of a Suburban Quotidian (1950–2000)
- 23 The Three Ontologies of Regional Poetry
- 24 The Poetry of Antarctica
- 25 Poetry and the State (1945 to the Present)
- 26 Australian Expatriate Poets
- 27 Les Murray
- 28 Religion and Poetry in Australia
- 29 Francis Webb
- 30 Australian Poetry and Post-War Immigration from Europe
- 31 The Long 1970s and Print Culture
- 32 Australian Poets of the 1980s
- 33 Activism and the Eruption of Aboriginal Writing
- 34 Reading the Archive of Australian Feminist Poetry since 1970
- 35 Queer Poetry in Australia
- 36 Between Identity and Form
- 37 Poetry of the South West Asian and North African Diasporas
- 38 Transcultural Relations with Latin America
- 39 Performance Poetries
- 40 Long Form Poetry from the 1980s to the Present
- 41 From Conceptual to Concrete (1960–2020)
- 42 The Digital Era
- 43 The Earth Has Been Done
- 44 Contemporary Anthologies and the Question of Canonicity
- 45 New Dynamics in Twenty-First-Century Anthologies
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter illustrates the significant role of poetry in both the human experience of the continent of Antarctica and the human response to its unfamiliar icescape. The connections between Australia and Antarctica are geological, historical and cultural, and 40 per cent of Antarctica comprises the Australian Antarctic Territory. Australian poets have figured the continent as blank and cold, while Antarctic explorers have written poetry and held poetry competitions. The chapter discusses the imaginary landscape of Henry Kendall’s seafaring encounter with Antarctica, and Douglas Stewart’s poetic drama about the heroic explorer Robert Falcon Scott. The invitation of Caroline Caddy and Terry Whitebeach to visit Antarctica in the 1990s produced poetry of first-hand experience of Antarctica. Other poets who have written about Antarctica include Dorothy Porter, Les Murray, Anthony Lawrence, Robert Harris and J. R. Rowland.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge History of Australian Poetry , pp. 457 - 475Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2025
References
Select Bibliography
Leane, Elizabeth, Antarctica in Fiction: Imaginative Narratives of the Far South, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leane, Elizabeth, ‘The Antarctic in Literature and the Popular Imagination’, in Nuttall, Mark, Christesen, Torben R. and Siegert, Martin (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Polar Regions, New York: Routledge, 2018, pp. 57–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maver, Igor, ‘Mapping the Unknown: Australian Mythical Landscape in Douglas Stewart’s “Voyager Poems”’, in Ballyn, Susan, MacCermott, Doireann and Firth, Kathleen (eds.), Australia’s Changing Landscapes: Proceedings of the Second EASA Conference, Barcelona: Department de Fililogia Anglesa i Alemanya, Universitat de Barcelona, 1995, pp. 139–44.Google Scholar
McFarlane, Rosalind, ‘Place, Palimpsest and the Present Day: Gondwana in Caroline Caddy’s Antarctica’, Cordite Poetry Review, 1 December 2013. www.cordite.org.au/essays/place-palimpsest-present-day/.Google Scholar
Nielsen, Hanne, ‘Identifying with Antarctica in the Ecocultural Imaginary’, in Milstein, Tema and Castro-Sotomayor, José (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity, London: Routledge, 2020, pp. 225–39.Google Scholar
Philpott, Carolyn and Leane, Elizabeth, ‘Making Music on the March: Sledging Songs of the “Heroic Era” of Antarctic Exploration’, Polar Record, 52.6, 2016, pp. 698–716.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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