"Out Back" (1893) is a poem by Australian poet Henry Lawson.
It was originally published in The Bulletin on 30 September 1893 and subsequently reprinted in several of the author's collections, other periodicals and a number of Australian poetry anthologies.
Critical reception In a review of In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses in The Sydney Morning Herald a reviewer referred to the poem's "pitiless realism".
Reviewing the same volume in The South Australian Register a reviewer called the poem a "powerful piece of realism".
Publication history
After the poem's initial publication in The Bulletin it was reprinted as follows:
The Worker, 15 December 1894 In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1900 The Queenslander, 14 December 1901 An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1907 The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1909 Selected Poems of Henry Lawson by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1918 Winnowed Verse by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1924 Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stephens and George Mackaness, Cornstalk Publishing, 1925 New Song in an Old Land edited by Rex Ingamells, 1943 Out Back and Other Poems by Henry Lawson, W. H. Honey, 1943 Poets of Australia : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1946 A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, Currawong, 1982 A Campfire Yarn : Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, Lansdowne, 1984 A Collection of Australian Bush Verse, Peter Antill-Rose, 1989 An Australian Treasury of Popular Verse edited by Jim Haynes, ABC Books, 2002
See also 1893 in Australian literature 1893 in poetry
References