Country Towns by Kenneth Slessor
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Country Towns, poem by Kenneth Slessor, addresses country towns. Slessor generalises and universalises country towns of Australia. "Willow" and "pepper-trees" refers to the generalisation of the trees in a country town. The use of aural imagery in "bouncing on barrel mares" is effective as the responder is able to hear the trot of the sturdy little horse coming to the pub. Slessor depicts that nothing has changed in this town the farmers still travel to the pub on their horses. Time is a recurring theme of Slessor's Country Towns. "Yellow wood" portrays age and more specifically, ageing wood on pubs. Slessor deliberately uses old terminology, "public-houses", to show it is old in Australian terms. Already from the first three lines of the first stanza, a vivid imagery is built up for the responder's imaginative mind. Australian terminology is used again "Hogans" and "General stores" which is effective as it heightens the imagery of the country town and relates specifically to an event which occurred in the early 1900s...