Certain Things

Certain Things

Author	Robert Gray
Language	English
Genre	Poetry collection
Publisher	Heinemann
Publication date	1993
Publication place	Australia
Media type	Print
Pages	81 pp.
Awards	1994 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, winner
ISBN	0855615060

Certain Things is a collection of poems by Australian poet Robert Gray, published by Heinemann in Australia in 1993. ^[1]

The collection contains 37 poems from a variety of sources, with some published here for the first time. ^[2]

The collection won the 1994 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry. ^[3]

Contents

• "Currawongs"
• "13th May (at Ted's)"
• "Harmonica"
• "The Pines"
• "Travelling"
• "The Girls"
• "(Traditional)"
• "Renga"
• "In Thin Air"
• "The Room"
• "A Testimony"
• "The West"
• "Wintry Evenings"
• "Descent"
• "Malthusian Island"
• "Landscape"
• "Doodling"
• "The White Roads"
• "Souvenir"
• "[Untitled] (from The Gift)"
• "Impromptus"
• "N.M.G."
• "On South Head"
• "Small Hours"
• "On a Forestry Trail"
• "The Life of a Chinese Poet"
• "Shard"
• "Outside (Going Outside)"
• "Arrivals and Departures"
• "Stanzas"
• "Today"
• "Illusions"
• "Dawn"
• "The South Coast, While Looking for a House"
• "In One Ear ..."
• "Afternoon Walk"
• "The Hawkesbury River"

Critical reception

Kevin Hart, writing in The Age, noted that Gray was continuing his examination of his recent themes, meditating "on the contingencies of nature – of the self and nature as nothing other than contingencies." he also noted that in the poet's best poems "we sense, behind the melancholy and even behind the nobility of voice, a principled affirmation of existence." ^[4]

Awards

• 1994 Victorian Premier's Literary Award – C. J. Dennis Prize for Poetry, winner ^[3]

See also

• 1993 in Australian literature

References

1. "Certain Things by Robert Gray". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
2. "Austlit — Certain Things by Robert Gray". Austlit. Retrieved 21 November 2025.
3. ""Opera critic writes a winner"". The Age, 15 October 1994, p8. ProQuest   2521649019 . Retrieved 21 November 2025.
4. ""Materialist mysticism"". The Age, 5 February 1994. ProQuest   2521642439 . Retrieved 21 November 2025.