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‘Few novelists are appreciated as much for their poetry as for their novels. Perhaps Thomas Hardy and D H Lawrence are among the rare exceptions. Some novelists go so far as to order the destruction of their poetry manuscripts, especially if classifiable as mainly juvenilia. I imagine that, as many novelists have done, writing occasional poems in one's youth is a good deal less taxing than the laborious penning of several early novels in draft form. Early `prentice' works such as these are frequently shredded or burned by novelists when their reputations have been established in the course of their developing careers. In many cases early experimental works are 'raided' by the novelist in later life, Patrick White, when it came to his oeuvre, rarely referred to his early work in poetry; neither indeed have his critics. No such reticence existed on the part of Katharine Susannah Prichard or on the part of the enthusiasts of her work. The more significant of her slim volumes of poems, The Earth Lover, was published in 1932 only three years before White's own second small volume, The Ploughman and Other Poems (1935).’ (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 17 Feb 2017 12:48:26
196-209
The Novelist as Occasional Poet : Patrick White and Katharine Susannah Prichard
Subjects:
- The Earth Lover 1932 single work poetry
- The Ploughman and Other Poems 1935 selected work poetry
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