I began teaching Australian literature not long after the death of Alec Derwent (A.D.) Hope (1907-2000). Despite Hope’s canonical status, I – like many – overlooked him, gravitating to writers more engaged with feminist, environmental, postcolonial and decolonial questions, or to those whose poetry was freshly modern, postmodern or experimental. Hope seemed conventional and dated by comparison.
Such assumptions were reinforced by his most anthologised poem, Australia (1943), with its image of the land as menopausal woman:
