Cirrus@Austlit

'J.S. Harry was a member of the poetic generation that grew up in the shadow of World War II and did so much to change the poetic landscape as they tried to make sense of the postwar world. Murray was born in 1938, Tranter in 1943, Adamson in 1944 and Robert Gray in 1945. J.S. Harry was born in 1939. Although she made less noise than some of her contemporaries, she created an impact from the beginning of her career. Her first book, The Deer Under the Skin, was published in 1971, as part of an important UQP series under the direction of Roger McDonald, and was immediately praised. Also unlike some of her contemporaries, she knew how to do it from the start: whatever difficulty individual poems might have caused her—she was a careful and meticulous craftsperson—she never had to struggle to develop a style.' (Publication abstract)