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Francis Webb burst onto the Australian poetry scene in 1948 with his first book, A Drum for Ben Boyd. He followed this with Leichhardt in Theatre three years later. Right from the start it was impossible to ignore him. The poem 'Morgan's Country' - an inner-portrait of Dan 'mad-dog' Morgan in which Webb seems to enter the outlaw's consciousness - is an innovative work that ran against the grain for an Australian poem in 1950. However, instead of embellishing a bushranger myth as Nolan did with his images of Ned Kelly, Webb strips away traces of narrative and then focuses on tiny details in a filmic way: 'At the window sill/ A blowfly strums on two strings of air'. (Author's introduction 65)
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Last amended 7 Jan 2013 13:49:46
Subjects:
- A Drum for Ben Boyd 1948 sequence poetry
- End of the Picnic 1953 single work poetry
- Morgan's Country 1950 single work poetry
- God's Fool : The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb 1991 selected work criticism biography
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