The Wind at Your Door


The Wind at Your Door is a one-poem volume by Australian poet R. D. Fitzgerald. The poem was originally published in The Bulletin on 17 December 1958, and later in this 275 copy Talkarra Press limited edition, signed by the author. It won the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1959.

Outline

The poem is based on the uprising of Irish rebel convicts at Castle Hill, New South Wales in 1804. It concerns two main characters, Martin Mason surgeon, and overseer of the brutal flogging of the poet's namesake, Morris Fitzgerral.

Critical reception

The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature noted that "...Fitzgerald sees the continuing problem, on both the both national and the individual level, of the Australian identity. On the general level is the problem of the nation adapting to its development from a 'jail-yard'; on the personal level is the problem of individual Australians adapting to both sides of their ancestry, authoritarianism and rebellion against authority."

Further publications