Meditative poem by Kenneth Slessor
"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. A 2017 study of Australian national poetry anthologies ranked "Five Bells" as the most anthologised poem, appearing in all except one anthology published between 1946 and 2011.
Outline.
The poem is a meditative piece based on a ship's bell ringing five bells - which occurs at either 2:30, 6:30, 10:30, 14:30, 18:30 or 22:30. The poem is a reflection of the death of Slessor's friend Joe Lynch who drowned in Sydney Harbour on 14 May 1927. Slessor wrote the poem between August 1935 and January 1937.
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 [sic] 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."
Impact and legacy.
Inspired by the poem the Australian artist John Olsen completed his painting "Five Bells" on commission in 1963. It was acquired by the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 1999. The artist also painted "Salute to Five Bells" as a mural for the rear foyer area of the Sydney Opera House concert hall in 1973.
The Australian author Gail Jones wrote a novel titled "Five Bells" in 2011, and noted in her acknowledgments: "The first debt of this project is to Kenneth Slessor's elegiac poem, "Five Bells" (1939), which returned to me, like a remembered song, one midnight on a ferry in the centre of Circular Quay".
The text of the poem is reproduced on a banister in Kenneth Slessor Park in the Sydney suburb of Chatswood.
References.
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