AustLit

'We suppose it is almost a canon of Australian literary criticism to give as hospitable entertainment as possible to native work; and yet one is inclined to doubt the existence of any such principle, from the way Mr Phillip J. Holdsworth's little volume of verse has been received in certain quarters. It is true that on the whole the book has been welcomed in a kindly enough spirit by the Australian press, but more than one of Holdsworth's critics, before proceeding to notice his book, seem to have asked themselves the question, "What good can come out of Nazareth?" - i.e. Australia - and then bared the scalpel. But these exponents fo the ungentle science have shown as little insight as sympathy. It is the barest literary justice to appreciate a poet by his best, and not by his worst; indeed, there is no reason why the worst should not be left out of the count altogether...'