It was first published in The Bulletin on 17 December 1892.
Analysisedit
The poem relates the experiences of a man from the Bush who visits Sydney and becomes the subject of a practical joke by a mischievous barber. The barber pretends to cut the bushman's throat by slashing his newly-shaven neck using the back of his cut-throat razor that had been heated in boiling water. While making his displeasure known,
A peeler man [i.e. policeman] who heard the din came in to see the show;
He tried to run the bushman in, but he refused to go.
The barber confesses that he was playing a joke, and the bushman, unconvinced, returns to Ironbark, where, due to his accounts of his Sydney experiences, "flowing beards are all the go".
A writer in The Herald from Melbourne noted, after Paterson's death, that the poem "will remain a gem
to the Outback as long as the Outback exists."[4]
The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature states: "In ironbark the oft-told story reinforces traditional bush suspicion of the city and leads to a pronounced fashion in beards."[5]
Publication historyedit
After its original publication in The Bulletin the poem was also included in the following anthologies, among others:
Singer of the Bush, A. B. (Banjo) Paterson : Complete Works 1885-1900 edited by Rosamund Campbell and Philippa Harvie, 1983[10]
The Penguin Book of Humorous Verse edited by Bill Scott, Penguin, 1984[11]
The Illustrated Treasury of Australian Verse edited by Beatrice Davis, Nelson, 1984[12]
My Country : Australian Poetry and Short Stories, Two Hundred Years edited by Leonie Kramer, Lansdowne, 1985[13]
The Bushwackers Australian Song Book edited by Jan Wositzky and Dobe Newton, Sphere, 1988[14]
A Vision Splendid: The Complete Poetry of A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson, Angus and Robertson, 1990[15]
A Treasury of Bush Verse edited by G. A. Wilkes, 1991[16]
The Penguin Book of Australian Ballads edited by Elizabeth Webby and Philip Butterss, Penguin, 1993[17]
Classic Australian Verse edited by Maggie Pinkney, Five Mile Press, 2001[18]
Our Country : Classic Australian Poetry : From Colonial Ballads to Paterson & Lawson edited by Michael Cook, Little Hills Press, 2002[19]
100 Australian Poems You Need to Know edited by Jamie Grant, Hardie Grant, 2008[20]
The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry edited by John Kinsella, Penguin, 2009[21]
See alsoedit
"The Man from Ironbark" – full text of the book The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses (including the poem "The Man from Ironbark") on Project Gutenberg Australia