Kevin Hart

‘Big Meadow’, a new poem by Kevin Hart

September 2024, no. 468 • 27 August 2024

Someone has left the day wide open hereBut no one ever comes to mow the grass.A man stands out of earshot, just a flash ... (read more)

Kevin Hart reviews 'The War Diaries of Kenneth Slessor: Official Australian correspondent 1940–1944' edited by Clement Semmler

July 1986, no. 82 • 01 July 1986

‘We assume, of course, that we are masters and not servants of facts,’ observes T.S. Eliot in an early essay, ‘and that we know that the discovery of Shakespeare’s laundry bills would not be of much use to us’. The sentence continues, still flickering between amusement and seriousness, futility of the research which has discovered them, in the possibility that some genius will appear who ... (read more)

Kevin Hart reviews 'Crossing the Gap: A novelist’s essays' by C.J. Koch

August 1987, no, 93 • 01 August 1987

Many of our strongest writers are also numbered among our most commanding critics; and in some cases – Dryden, Johnson, Coleridge, and Eliot – it is not easy to tell whether their greater contribution is to literature or literary criticism. Part of the problem, of course, is that at this high level the distinction tends to break down: criticism becomes literature in its own right and often on ... (read more)

Kevin Hart reviews 'Hot Copy: Reading and writing now' by Don Anderson

September 1986, no. 84 • 01 September 1986

From the enlightenment to post-modernity, there has been one common rallying cry: ‘This is the age of criticism.’ Religious authority, natural rights and philosophical dogmatism have all been under critique for so long that criticism has almost come to seem natural, authoritative and is in danger of hardening into dogma. Little surprise, then, that outside the academy the word ‘criticism’ ... (read more)

Kevin Hart reviews 'Collected Poems' by Charles Buckmaster

August 1989, no. 113 • 01 August 1989

All poets have two chances of being remembered. A few, the strongest of their age, compose a handful of poems that resist time and indifference. Many more never attain anything like poetic strength, yet their works are preserved because they embody a particular style or period. It is still too early to judge where Charles Buckmaster will be placed in the ranks of Australian literature. Already, th ... (read more)