Francis Webb: Contents page

Francis Webb (1925–73) is generally thought to be Australia’s greatest poet. He was born in Adelaide; his mother died when he was two and he was raised in Sydney by his father’s parents. He served in the Royal Australian Air Force in the Second World War but didn’t see active service. He studied briefly at Sydney University and spent time in Canada and Britain. His first book of poems, A Drum for Ben Boyd, was published in 1948 while he was in Canada. He had his first mental breakdown in England in 1949 and spent many years in mental asylums in England and in Australia suffering from paranoic schizophrenia. His work displays brilliant technique, powerful compression of form, and has a strong religous bias involving suffering and compassion.