Out of Time
Out of Time
By Kieren Hovasapian
Out of Time is a poem written by Kenneth Slessor and is one of his personally favorite poems to date he has written. Time is personified in this poem, but also associated with the natural phenomenon of water, or vessels such as yachts seen on Slessor’s favorite location, Sydney Harbor (which is itself personified). Personification gives immediacy to an abstraction such as time, and elicits evaluative responses which are more arresting than an address to an abstraction could ever be. So Slessor finds that Time ‘enfolds me in its bed’, but – in the next line – it is ‘the bony knife’ which ‘runs me through.’ Seeing time everywhere, he notes that it flows through all things and his heart rebukes him: “Time flows, not you.”
Kenneth Slessor constantly reminds us during the first part of the poem that time itself cannot be slowed down or stopped; it is just a force that never stops or runs out. He seems pessimistic about the subject of Time though, as he constantly keeps repeating himself which is why he chose the title for the poem as, ‘Out of Time’ because no matter what, Time will never stop for anyone or anything.
He is the pawn of Time whose mastery is complete and indifferent to his emotions: it ‘drills me, drives through bone and vein’, just as ‘water bends the seaweeds in the sea.’ Time may be cruelly dominant, but the speaker’s view of himself is worse: ‘the tide goes over but the weeds remain’. Yet the engagement with Time and its indifference to us. In both senses, we are, ‘Out of Time’: that is, at once part of its scheme, but then abandoned by it; and also (as in music) out of kilter with its rhythms and purposes.
Contrastingly, in the second section, Time is now seen at a disadvantage (which, again, is given immediacy by personification). Time, always flowing, cannot abide in the lovely moments it affords. Ever changing, he is subservient to ‘to-morrow’ and deaf to the entreaties of such as ‘beauty’, urging him to be
By Kieren Hovasapian
Out of Time is a poem written by Kenneth Slessor and is one of his personally favorite poems to date he has written. Time is personified in this poem, but also associated with the natural phenomenon of water, or vessels such as yachts seen on Slessor’s favorite location, Sydney Harbor (which is itself personified). Personification gives immediacy to an abstraction such as time, and elicits evaluative responses which are more arresting than an address to an abstraction could ever be. So Slessor finds that Time ‘enfolds me in its bed’, but – in the next line – it is ‘the bony knife’ which ‘runs me through.’ Seeing time everywhere, he notes that it flows through all things and his heart rebukes him: “Time flows, not you.”
Kenneth Slessor constantly reminds us during the first part of the poem that time itself cannot be slowed down or stopped; it is just a force that never stops or runs out. He seems pessimistic about the subject of Time though, as he constantly keeps repeating himself which is why he chose the title for the poem as, ‘Out of Time’ because no matter what, Time will never stop for anyone or anything.
He is the pawn of Time whose mastery is complete and indifferent to his emotions: it ‘drills me, drives through bone and vein’, just as ‘water bends the seaweeds in the sea.’ Time may be cruelly dominant, but the speaker’s view of himself is worse: ‘the tide goes over but the weeds remain’. Yet the engagement with Time and its indifference to us. In both senses, we are, ‘Out of Time’: that is, at once part of its scheme, but then abandoned by it; and also (as in music) out of kilter with its rhythms and purposes.
Contrastingly, in the second section, Time is now seen at a disadvantage (which, again, is given immediacy by personification). Time, always flowing, cannot abide in the lovely moments it affords. Ever changing, he is subservient to ‘to-morrow’ and deaf to the entreaties of such as ‘beauty’, urging him to be