Country Towns By Kenneth Slessor Analysis

Poetic techniques are a key necessity in Kenneth Slessor’s poems. Slessor uses a variety of poetic techniques to describe his poems to the readers. He reveals memorable ideas through the concept of time, belonging and place. Slessor’s poems ‘William Street’ and ‘Country Towns’ are two great examples of this. These two poems convey the concept of memorable ideas, through the use of poetic techniques.
Country Towns explores the concept on a wide spectrum of places, people and occurrences which are happening in a typical country town. Slessor is concerned about giving the readers an immediate impressions and feelings about life in the Country Towns. Slessor begins the poem by addressing the towns as though they are living, by the use of personification. Slessor does this to show that he can directly talk about life within them. He paints a concept of “famers bouncing on barrel mares” by using alliteration of the letter ‘b’. Which …show more content…
Time has not stopped still for these people in poverty, as they try to get food. Olfactory and aural are the two senses that Slessor uses to describe the food. Slessor uses alliteration to explain the sounds of the food. The quotes “Rich and rasping”, “pavements of their pasturage”, “fat and fish”, and “split on the stones”. They all use repetition which changes the mood of the poem. Time is referred to as the people’s life. Poverty is a key message in the poem as Slessor states “death at their elbows, hunger at their heels”. Demonstrates poverty and time of change when poverty was very vibrate, and could be seen anywhere. When the sun will come up these people will be forgotten by society. When the sun sets they will be remembered again, as the people will re- appear. Which illustrates that time is unstoppable. It shows how in this limited amount of time, the people are trying their best to survive by doing what society would be disgusted