I’m reading about the life of Australia’s best poet and short story writer, Henry Lawson by Grantlee Kiera and it’s a fascinating read into a man who battled deafness, depression and alcoholism but wrote some of the best poems about Australia’s battlers.

I had read his poetry at school and also later in life but I had mixed up his works with those of Banjo Patterson who was also around at the same time. While Banjo had better prospects in his life working at a solicitors office and having his own grand apartment and connections across society, Lawson struggled with poverty and alcoholism which I found incredibly sad.

His work recounts the difficult life of the men and women in the bush. Having been born to a staunch feminist, republican suffragette mother, Louisa Lawson, by all accounts she seemed like one tough woman. Through her, he tended to have the same leanings hated Australia to be tied to the monarchy, a socialist and a feminist to boot.

“But wronged, and cast out, drink sodden,

But shunned, and “insane” and unclean,

I have dates where few others have trodden

I have seen what few others have seen”

“The Soul of a Poet”

I’m only about one third through this book but it’s making me appreciate his work and why he wrote the poems and stories at certain times of his life.

While waiting to see the doctor this morning, I read his short story, The Drover’s Wife which was superb and recounted brilliantly the tough but exhausting life of women who had to survive the elements and the bush when their husbands were away for months droving.

It’s an Australia that is long since gone but I’m glad we have his works to highlight these times in history.