Out Back (poem)

"Out Back" 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 1894In the Days When the World was Wide and Other Verses by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1900The Queenslander, 14 December 1901An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1907The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Bertram Stevens, Angus and Robertson, 1909Selected Poems of Henry Lawson by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1918Winnowed Verse by Henry Lawson, Angus and Robertson, 1924Selections from Australian Poets edited by Bertram Stephens and George Mackaness, Cornstalk Publishing, 1925New Song in an Old Land edited by Rex Ingamells, 1943Out Back and Other Poems by Henry Lawson, W. H. Honey, 1943Poets of Australia : An Anthology of Australian Verse edited by George Mackaness, Angus & Robertson, 1946A Treasury of Colonial Poetry, Currawong, 1982A Campfire Yarn : Henry Lawson Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Leonard Cronin, Lansdowne, 1984A Collection of Australian Bush Verse, Peter Antill-Rose, 1989An Australian Treasury of Popular Verse edited by Jim Haynes, ABC Books, 2002