God's Fool
The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This is the story of one of Australia's greatest twentieth century poets who spent nearly his whole adult life in mental hospitals labeled a schizophrenic. He was hailed by the eminent British critic Sir Herbert Read as "the most unjustly neglected poet of the twentieth century" and was compared by Herbert Read to Rilke, Pasternak, Eliot and Robert Lowell. Webb's life story, which covers time in Australia, England and Canada, is an amazing saga of the transformation of massive personal difficulties into a rich creative outcome. In the words of one of his own characters, The Knight, in the The Canticle, a poem about life of St. Francis of Assisi: "All beauty, all joy? Yes, - and all pain and disfigurement." Webb's poetry covers a huge range of subjects from sagas of Australian exploration, to poems of spiritual engagement and insightful studies of fellow inmates in mental hospital. He writes of the landscape and history of Australia, England and Canada where he trained as an air-gunner at the end of the Second World War. His language - powerfully challenging and breathtakingly beautiful - takes the reader deep into an understanding of the nature of human existence. Webb was born on the 8th of February, 1925 and died on the 23rd of November, 1973.
Customer Reviews
Toby Davidson- Editor of Francis Webb's Collected Poems UWS
The Biographical Key to Francis Webb's Poetry
With the first publication of God's Fool: The Life and Poetry of Francis Webb in 1991, our insight into Webb's prodigious but sometimes private poetry changed forever. Michael Griffith's highly-readable account shows how the tragedy of losing both parents at a young age shaped key Webb themes of parental stars, the absent father, and the search for wholeness and transcendence. Griffith traces Webb's life in Australia, Canada and England with judicious sourcework and compassion to weave an unmatched cradle-to-grave tapestry of an Australian genius whose globally-important achievement we are still just beginning to truly appreciate. This updated ebook edition, combined with the new ebook edition of Webb's Collected Poems with UWA Publishing, finally allows Webb's global audience access to his life and works in an instant and for a fraction of the cost, a gift to the digital century both from the maestro himself and his wonderfully tenacious biographer.