This video looks at Lawson through the poems he wrote at various stages of his life and gives a deep insight into Lawson’s complex character. What makes Henry Lawson a powerful writer is that he tapped his impoverished childhood and unhappy adult life to produce poetry and prose of great beauty. By walking hundreds of miles across the continent of Australia, he developed a unique understanding of the outback men and women and his writing captures the nature of the tough breed of people who settled in a harsh, unforgiving land.