Cirrus@Austlit

'In Australian Literature (1940), E. Morris Miller says that John Boyle O'Reilly was the 'first poet associated with Western Australia'. He was in Western Australia for two years in the late 1860s. However, if we allow that there was a tradition of publishing local verse from the inception of the newspaper/journal press in the colony (1892 on), this can be seen as merely a statement about external recognition and publication - that is, recognition outside the colony. I would argue that even in terms of that external recognition, for example there were other poets from the colony who were associated with Western Australia by those outside the colony.'