Biographical entry Slessor, Kenneth Adolf (1901 - 1971)

OBE

Born
27 March 1901
Orange, New South Wales, Australia
Died
30 June 1971
North Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation
Journalist, Poet and Writer of Inscription

Details

Kenneth Slessor was a poet and journalist. He worked for the Smith's Weekly from 1927 to 1940 (serving as an editor from 1935). Slessor published his major poetic work Five Bells: XX Poems in 1939. He was appointed official war correspondent by the Commonwealth government in February 1940. Sleessor was editor of the Sun from 1945 to 1957. He worked at the Daily Telegraph until his death in 1971.

In an interview in 1963, Menzies reportedly said that Kenneth Slessor was one of his favourite Australian poets ('Sir Robert Menzies Tells TV Viewers of an Unfamiliar Subject').

Sources

Haskell, Dennis. Slessor, Kenneth Adolf (1901-1971), Australian Dictionary of Biography. National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. Published in hard copy 2002, accessed online 29 July 2013.

'Sir Robert Menzies Tells TV Viewers of an Unfamiliar Subject.' The Age, 5 August 1963, 3.