Kenneth Slessor

Backless Betty from Bondi Kenneth Slessor

Variously called Australia's first modern poet, the father of modern Australian poetry, and "the master craftsman of them all," Kenneth Slessor continues to be admired in Australia and abroad for a comparatively small body of work. Yet one of his critics, Herbert C. Jaffa, has said that "some of [Slessor's] poems are among the most important written in English in modern literature." Backless Betty from Bondi was first published in 1930 as a poem to the "flappers" (modern gals) who moved to Sydney's Eastern Suburbs. Introduced by Julian Croft this is its first publication in paperback.