Michael Ackland comments: 'The first step toward realizing his vision came in
Phoenix Wings, which is dominated by diverse adaptations of foreign sources. Whether in recasting French poetry or Taoist legends, Stewart chose the relative invisibility afforded by acts of translation. Only four poems have a first-person speaker who could be confounded with the author. "The Annunciation" opens the collection with an avowal of vocation; the other poems expand on the need for emancipation....Friends, understandably, were struck by the derivative, rather than the anticipatory, nature of this work--little realizing that through the great oriental traditions Stewart would eventually find himself creatively and spiritually.'
('Harold Stewart December 14, 1916-August 7, 1995' , Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 260: Australian Writers, 1915-1950. (2002): 367-374).
