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y separately published work icon The Land I Came Through Last single work   autobiography  
Issue Details: First known date: 2008... 2008 The Land I Came Through Last
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description

From the author's Preface: 'This book was meant to be mainly about my parents, although I and others have obtruded within it, and was intended neither to vindicate nor vilify them, but to retain a sense of them as they were...It seems to me that memory must be as we find it, pragmatically: something that can usually be relied upon. To deny this, in principle, is to deny there is a distinction between fantasy and empirical fact.' (p.1)

Notes

  • Dedication: To my brothers and sister, chosen people.
  • Epigraph: I am the family face;/ Flesh perishes, I live on/ ... leaping from place to place/ Over oblivion... - Thomas Hardy
  • It seems I was called for this:/ To glorify things just because they are. - Czeslaw Milosz

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Artarmon, North Sydney - Lane Cove area, Sydney Northern Suburbs, Sydney, New South Wales,: Giramondo Publishing , 2008 .
      person or book cover
      Image courtesy of Giramondo Publishing
      Extent: 435p.
      Description: illus., ports
      Note/s:
      • Publication date: September 2008.
      ISBN: 9781920882358 (pbk.)

Works about this Work

In the Light : The Poetry of Robert Gray Jeffrey Wainwright , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: PN Review , January/February vol. 38 no. 3 2012; (p. 60-64)
'Prefacing his fine memoir, The Land I Came Through Last (2008), Robert Gray writes that his original intention was to write about his parents but that in the writing the book shaded into an autobiography. It certainly presents fascinating portraits of his family and of their contexts and times but finally it is indeed an autobiography, and quite selfconsciously a poet's autobiography, even one firmly in the Romantic tradition.' (Author's introduction)
East–West Turnings : Australian and American Poetry in Light of Asia Paul Kane , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 107-118)

'I want to suggest in this essay something unremarkable, in the sense that it has already been remarked upon quite a lot: that both American and Australian poetry engages with the East in significant ways...With the rise of postcolonial studies, we have learned a good deal about the intersections of history, culture, power and perception. This has become not so much a field of study as a veritable Outback of study, except it isn't Outback at all: it's front and centre. But perhaps because the point is so obvious to us now we might gain something by looking at it afresh, or at least again.

My interest here, however, is not primarily in postcolonial perspectives or orientalism or subaltern studies or other similar undertakings, which typically analyse structures of dominance and resistance and illuminate ideological implications and mystifications. Indeed, the superabundance of such studies is already in excess of anything I could add. Nor am I considering the wealth of literary works that constitute Asian-American or Asian-Australian literature. My perspective is more limited, and perhaps...unremarkable. I simply want to suggest that the East so-called has also functioned as generative force - whether as provocation or inspiration - for certain poets in Australia and America, beginning in the nineteenth century and especially recently, and that there are some unusual features to this phenomenon worthy of inspection. I am going to note several examples of such poets and then say something about possible conclusions we might draw as we look to the future.' (pp. 107-108)

A Different Kind of Romance : Or Reading Romance in Robert Gray's The Land I Came Through Last and Evelyn Juer's House of Exiles [sic] Nicolette Stasko , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 70 no. 2 2010; (p. 180-192)
Offers an alternative reading of Gray's autobiography and Juer's biography of Heinrich and Nelly Mann.
The Hurt That Makes a Poet Jamie Grant , 2010 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , March vol. 54 no. 3 2010; (p. 120-121)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography
Things as They Are, and Were Stephen McInerney , 2009 single work review
— Appears in: Quadrant , April vol. 53 no. 4 2009; (p. 119-120)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography
Untitled Clive Tilsley , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: Bookseller + Publisher Magazine , August vol. 88 no. 2 2008; (p. 42)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography
Stanzas Missing in a Moving Portrait of a Fine Poet A. P. Riemer , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 6-7 September 2008; (p. 28-29)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography
Haunting Voice Speaks Out to Us Diane Stubbings , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Canberra Times , 13 September 2008; (p. 13)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography
Where I Came From Katharine England , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Advertiser , 20 September 2008; (p. 12)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography ; The Naked Truth : A Life in Parts Graeme Blundell , 2008 single work autobiography
Pastoral Sympathy of a Son Geordie Williamson , 2008 single work review
— Appears in: The Weekend Australian , 20-21 September 2008; (p. 10-11)

— Review of The Land I Came Through Last Robert Gray , 2008 single work autobiography
Poet Paley Loitering Valerie Lawson , 2008 single work column
— Appears in: The Sydney Morning Herald , 6-7 September 2008; (p. 26-27)
A Different Kind of Romance : Or Reading Romance in Robert Gray's The Land I Came Through Last and Evelyn Juer's House of Exiles [sic] Nicolette Stasko , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 70 no. 2 2010; (p. 180-192)
Offers an alternative reading of Gray's autobiography and Juer's biography of Heinrich and Nelly Mann.
East–West Turnings : Australian and American Poetry in Light of Asia Paul Kane , 2010 single work criticism
— Appears in: Reading Across the Pacific : Australia-United States Intellectual Histories 2010; (p. 107-118)

'I want to suggest in this essay something unremarkable, in the sense that it has already been remarked upon quite a lot: that both American and Australian poetry engages with the East in significant ways...With the rise of postcolonial studies, we have learned a good deal about the intersections of history, culture, power and perception. This has become not so much a field of study as a veritable Outback of study, except it isn't Outback at all: it's front and centre. But perhaps because the point is so obvious to us now we might gain something by looking at it afresh, or at least again.

My interest here, however, is not primarily in postcolonial perspectives or orientalism or subaltern studies or other similar undertakings, which typically analyse structures of dominance and resistance and illuminate ideological implications and mystifications. Indeed, the superabundance of such studies is already in excess of anything I could add. Nor am I considering the wealth of literary works that constitute Asian-American or Asian-Australian literature. My perspective is more limited, and perhaps...unremarkable. I simply want to suggest that the East so-called has also functioned as generative force - whether as provocation or inspiration - for certain poets in Australia and America, beginning in the nineteenth century and especially recently, and that there are some unusual features to this phenomenon worthy of inspection. I am going to note several examples of such poets and then say something about possible conclusions we might draw as we look to the future.' (pp. 107-108)

In the Light : The Poetry of Robert Gray Jeffrey Wainwright , 2012 single work criticism
— Appears in: PN Review , January/February vol. 38 no. 3 2012; (p. 60-64)
'Prefacing his fine memoir, The Land I Came Through Last (2008), Robert Gray writes that his original intention was to write about his parents but that in the writing the book shaded into an autobiography. It certainly presents fascinating portraits of his family and of their contexts and times but finally it is indeed an autobiography, and quite selfconsciously a poet's autobiography, even one firmly in the Romantic tradition.' (Author's introduction)
Last amended 9 Oct 2014 14:01:29
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