"Harry" (1962) is a poem by Australian poet Francis Webb.
It was originally published in the journal Meanjin Quarterly vol. 21 no. 1, March 1962, and was subsequently reprinted in the author's single-author collections and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
The poem forms a part of the poet's Ward Two sequence of 8 poems.
Contents
Synopsis
Harry, the subject of the poem, is a young man with Down syndrome who is confined to a mental health institution. He is attempting to write a letter with "purloined paper" and a "bent insitutional pen". The letter will be directed "to the House of no known address." This implies that he has written such a letter before but that it was returned.
The poet's Ward Two sequence of poems is based on the time that Francis Webb spent as a patient in Parramatta Psychiatric Hospital in 1960-61.
Critical reception
Andrew Taylor, in his chapter on Webb in his book Reading Australian Poetry, stated the "poem leaves us in no doubt that Harry is not only innocent of literacy, he is also innocent of the fallen condition of his world". The poem "leaves us in no doubt that by failing to write [the letter] Harry has avoided the fall from primal innocence and communion with holiness."
In his commentary on the poem in 60 Classic Australian Poems Geoff Page noted that while Webb wrote "quite a few more 'ambitious poems'" it is this poem, "with its deeply felt religious imagery – and its 'laborious serfs' – that we see Webb at his most moving and most interesting."
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication Meanjin Quarterly in 1962 it was reprinted as follows:
Australian Poetry 1962 edited by Geoffrey Dutton, Angus and Robertson, 1962
The Ghost of the Cock : Poems by Francis Webb, Angus and Robertson, 1964
Modern Australian Writing edited by Geoffrey Dutton, Collins, 1966
On Native Grounds : Australian Writing from Meanjin Quarterly edited by C. B. Christesen, Angus and Robertson, 1967
A Book of Australian Verse edited by Judith Wright, Oxford University Press, 1968
New Impulses in Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall and Thomas Shapcott, University of Queensland Press, 1968
Collected Poems by Francis Webb, Angus and Robertson, 1969
Twelve Poets, 1950-1970 edited by Alexander Craig, Jacaranda Press, 1971
The Penguin Book of Australian Verse edited by Harry Heseltine, Penguin Books, 1972
Australian Verse from 1805 : A Continuum edited by Geoffrey Dutton, Rigby, 1976
The Golden Apples of the Sun : Twentieth Century Australian Poetry edited by Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Melbourne University Press, 1980
The Collins Book of Australian Poetry edited by Rodney Hall, Collins, 1981