{{Short description|Australian poet and anarchist}} {{Use Australian English|date=October 2020}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2014}} {{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] --> | name = Harry Hooton | image = | caption = | image_size = | pseudonym = | birth_name = Henry (Harry) Arthur Hooton | birth_date = {{birth date|df=yes|1908|10|09}} | birth_place = [[Doncaster]], [[Yorkshire]], England | death_date = {{death date and age|df=yes|1961|6|27|1908|10|09}} | death_place = [[Sydney]], [[New South Wales]], Australia | occupation = Poet | period = | subject = | movement = | influences = | influenced = | signature = | website = | awards = }} '''Henry (Harry) Arthur Hooton''' (9 October 1908 – 27 June 1961) was an Australian poet and social commentator whose writing spanned the years 1930s–1961.<ref name=ADB>{{cite book|title= Henry Arthur (Harry) Hooton (1908–1961) by Sasha Soldatow |chapter=Henry Arthur (Harry) Hooton (1908–1961) |publisher=Australian Dictionary of Biography|chapter-url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hooton-henry-arthur-harry-10539|access-date= 4 June 2025}}</ref> He was described by a biographer as ahead of his time, or rather "of his time while the majority of progressive artists and thinkers in Australia lagged far behind".<ref name=sasha>Soldatow S. "[http://www.takver.com/history/hooton_bio.htm Harry Hooton (1908–1961): Poet and philosopher of the 21st century—an introductory biography]"</ref> Initially a socialist and "[[wobbly]]", he later professed [[anarchism]] and became an associate of the [[Sydney Push]] during the 1940s, with connections to many other Australian writers, film makers and artists. Hooton's constant attitude and literary style was extravagant, provocative and explicitly outrageous.<ref name=mcmullen>McMullen, Terence. ''[https://digital.library.sydney.edu.au/nodes/view/6805#idx76105 An Anarchist Dictator]'' in ''[[Hermes (publication)|Hermes]]'', [[University of Sydney]], 1962, p.29</ref>
==Early life== Hooton was born in [[Doncaster]], Yorkshire, England. His father was Levi Hooton, a railway shunter, and his mother's maiden name was Margaret Lester-Glaister. He had an older brother, Frank.<ref name=sasha/>
At the age of 16 he arrived in Sydney on 28 October 1924, on the ship ''Demosthenes'' as part of an Empire scheme, the Dreadnought Trust,<ref>"The Dreadnought Trust was established in 1909 when a meeting at Sydney Town Hall resolved to raise money to purchase a battleship for the British Navy. The meeting agreed that 'the time has arrived for the Commonwealth to take an active share in the naval defense (sic) of the Empire'. Britain and Germany were engaged in an escalating arms race. Battleships – 'dreadnoughts' in the contemporary vernacular – were the major currency in an increasing rivalry which culminated in the Great War of 1914–18. However the Australian Government decided in 1910 to establish an Australian navy, rendering the subscription irrelevant. A large part of the £90,000 raised was placed in a fund to bring British boys to Australia for training and assignment as rural workers". [http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/fieldsofmemories/trainingfarm.html Fields of Memories] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090614021131/http://www.migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/fieldsofmemories/trainingfarm.shtml |date=14 June 2009 }} New South Wales Govt migration heritage website</ref> with fifty-nine other boys. After humping his swag around much of [[New South Wales]] and [[Queensland]] through the [[Great Depression]], in 1936, just as his first pieces of writing were being published, Hooton was introduced to the poet [[Marie E. J. Pitt]] living in [[Melbourne]] and carried on a correspondence with her for the next eight years.<ref name=solda>Soldatow, Sasha. Introduction to "Poet of the 21st Century", p.7</ref>
==Literary development== Hooton's first book of poetry, "These Poets", appeared in 1941, published at his own expense in a small print run of up to 400 copies, most of which Hooton either gave away or swapped. It struck a chord with readers, receiving much critical acclaim.<ref name=sasha/>
In 1943 Hooton met the authors [[Nettie Palmer]] and [[Miles Franklin]] while they were travelling through [[Newcastle, New South Wales|Newcastle]]. Through Miles Franklin he was introduced to the writings of [[Carl Sandburg]] and the American literary scene. Moving to Sydney in 1943 Hooton submitted a book of poems titled "Leave Yourself Alone" to a publisher without success. Later he self-published "Things You See When You Haven't Got A Gun". In a new magazine, untitled, unpretentious and called simply "No. 1", the poetry of Hooton, [[A. D. Hope]], and Gary Lyle was featured. Hooton and Hope also featured in "No. 2".<ref name=AustlitBib>{{cite web|title= Austlit — works by Harry Hooton |publisher= Austlit|url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A8988?mainTabTemplate=agentWorksBy&restrictToAgent=A8988&sortWorksBy=byDateAsc|access-date= 4 June 2025}}</ref>
Hooton's "Things You See When You Haven't Got A Gun" was reviewed by [[Max Harris (poet)|Max Harris]] in one line in the [[Ern Malley]] issue of ''[[Angry Penguins]]'', "Our anarchist bull careers madly through his intellectual fog."<ref name=sasha/>
==="Sydney Push" milieu=== In Sydney after [[World War II]], Hooton was drawn to the intellectual circles of [[Sydney University]], the [[Sydney Push]] and the wider artistic society of the Lincoln<ref name=weblin2>Weblin, Mark (ed.) [http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/anderson/contributors/weblin/tnl/tnl02.pdf The Northern Line #2] April 2007, at The John Anderson Archive, University of Sydney</ref>{{rp|pp.6–10}} coffee lounge, described by [[Richard Appleton]] as the "Mecca of the Australian arts",<ref name=appo>Appleton, Richard "Appo, Recollections of a member of the Sydney Push", Sydney University Press 2009</ref>{{rp|p.5}} and the Tudor Hotel. Appleton and others have noted Hooton's opposition to the generally favoured realist philosophy of [[John Anderson (philosopher)|Professor John Anderson]] and its activist offshoot, the Libertarian Society.<blockquote>When Anderson's realist philosophy held intellectual sway at Sydney University, Hooton attacked vehemently philosophy and universities (he claimed sometimes that Anderson was his main enemy, although he defended Anderson when he thought he was being wrongly attacked). To a literary world influenced by people such as [[James Joyce|Joyce]], [[William Butler Yeats|Yeats]], [[Ezra Pound|Pound]] and [[T. S. Eliot|Eliot]], Hooton decried them as anti-artists, philistines and charlatans. He admitted only a few people as poets, including [[Walt Whitman|Whitman]], [[Oscar Wilde|Wilde]] and [[Henry Lawson]].<ref name=mcmullen/>{{rp|p.30}}</blockquote> Appleton explained: "Hooton held that polemic was an art form and that all poetry should be didactic", an obtuse view which, coupled with his paradoxical debating style, brought Hooton into conflict with Libertarians (who especially revered Joyce's ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'') and with more [[wikt:purist|purist]]ic poets such as [[Lex Banning]], [[James McAuley]] and [[A. D. Hope]].<ref name=appo/>{{rp|pp.39–40}}
Yet his presence was compelling and characteristically welcomed by those who would otherwise be in disagreement. Many years later, [[Germaine Greer]] noted his influence on her: <blockquote>...Harry, the utopian anarchist who had admired her red stockings, who believed people were perfect and who was not weighed down by the tremendous forces the anarchistic pessimists felt bore down on them all the time. "Alas, I understand him much better now," she said, twenty years later. "... but I think a lot of the things I've done since I've done out of a desire to please Harry Hooton..."<ref>[[Christine Wallace]], ''Untamed Shrew'' (1997) p. 94</ref></blockquote>
While Hooton was living a very bohemian life in Sydney, he was connecting with literary people in Japan, India, Greece, South Africa, England, France, New Zealand, and the USA. Hooton had corresponded with counter-culture figures in California, and with [[Tuli Kupferberg]] who would later form the rock group [[The Fugs]].<ref name=sasha/> He contributed to many periodicals and journals in addition to those he brought out himself. "He has published not only in Australia but in London, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, etc, and has had some material translated into Greek. He is far better known overseas than he is here".<ref name=mcmullen/>{{rp|p.30}}
===Anarcho-technocracy=== Hooton argued that man should have power over things, including machines, but never over other men, applying to himself the term "anarcho-technocrat".<ref name=appo/>{{rp|p.39}} "He regarded the age of man as passed, and sees the age of the machine as the proper object of pursuit... In his quest for power over machines, Hooton is a technocrat, and in his opposition to power over men, he is an anarchist."<ref name=mcmullen/>{{rp|p.30}}
Hooton never completed his philosophical treatise, titled "Militant [[Materialism]]", although he did complete six of its eight chapters. His ideas were magically simple. Leave man alone, man is perfect. Concentrate instead on matter. He formulated what he called Anarcho-technocracy: 'The Politics of Things'.<ref name=ADB />
Hooton saw proof copies of the last book published during his lifetime, ''It Is Great To Be Alive'', published by Margaret Elliott ([[Margaret Fink]]), just before he died of cancer in 1961.<ref name=ADB />
An 83-minute experimental film, ''Harry Hooton – Outsider Poet'' was made by [[Arthur and Corinne Cantrill]] in 1969. In the soundtrack, Hooton outlines his social philosophy in a series of recordings made shortly before his death in 1961.<ref>Wilson, Jake "[http://www.acmi.net.au/grain-of-voice-cantrills-essay.htm Voice of the Grain: Films By Arthur and Corinne Cantrill]" {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110301213506/http://www.acmi.net.au/grain-of-voice-cantrills-essay.htm |date=1 March 2011}}, October 2010, at [[Australian Centre for the Moving Image|ACMI]]. Accessed 23 March 2011.</ref>
== See also ==
* [[Anarchism in Australia]]
== Bibliography == * Pogonoski, R. G. "These Poets" (poetry collection) Newcastle 1941 * Cooney, W. A. "Things You See When You Haven't Got a Gun" (poetry collection) 1943 * "It is Great To Be Alive" (poetry collection) published by Margaret Elliott for 21st Century Art Group, Sydney 1961 * "Anarcho-Technocracy: The Politics of Things" (four-page pamphlet) 1953 * "[http://www.takver.com/history/aia/aia00024.htm The Politics of Things]" Essay published in ''21st Century: The Magazine of a Creative Civilization'', September 1955 * "Power Over Things" (collection), Inferno Press, USA, 1955 * "Poet of the 21st Century: Harry Hooton—Collected Poems". Edited by Sasha Soldatow. Collins/Angus & Robertson, Sydney 1990 {{ISBN|0-207-16646-3}}
==References== {{Reflist|2}}
==Further reading== * Hooton, Harry [http://www.takver.com/history/hooton_tech.htm Anarcho–Technocracy The Politics of Things]. Précis, from 4-page pamphlet, c.1953. At Radical Tradition, Takver.com * May, James Boyer "Concerning a Maker". Essay on Hooton in ''Selected Essays and Criticism''. Villiers Publications, London 1957 * Soldatow, Sasha [https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/hooton-henry-arthur-harry-10539 Hooton, Henry Arthur (1908–1961)] Australian National Dictionary of Biography, 1996 * Hooton, Harry [http://www.bpj.org/index/H.html#Hooton%20Harry%20 Geometry for Beginners (It is better to prefer than to prove) & It'll Be All Wrong in the End] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623045001/http://bpj.org/index/H.html#Hooton%20Harry%20 |date=23 June 2011 }} (Two poems published in ''[[Beloit Poetry Journal]]'', 1953, 1954) * Hooton, Harry [https://www.jstor.org/pss/20631127 Poetry or Not] Essay published in the ''[[Australian Quarterly]]'' Vol. 15, No. 3 (Sep. 1943), pp. 87–96 * Hooton, Harry [https://www.jstor.org/pss/20631361 Poetry and the New Proletariat] Essay published in the ''[[Australian Quarterly]]'' Vol. 18, No. 2 (Jun. 1946), pp. 96–104 * Hooton, Harry [https://www.jstor.org/pss/20633130 The Dictatorship of Art] Essay published in the ''[[Australian Quarterly]]'' Vol. 21, No. 1 (Mar. 1949), pp. 61–71 * Coombs, Anne ''"Sex and Anarchy: the Life and Death of the Sydney Push"'', Viking, Ringwood, Victoria, 1996. * Harcourt, Bill,''"The Push"'', The National Times, 3 February 1975.
== External links == * [https://web.archive.org/web/20110306121155/http://www.acmi.net.au/cantrills_harry_hooten.aspx Harry Hooton: The Outsider Poet] Description of 1970 film at [[Australian Centre for the Moving Image|ACMI]] * Leser D. [https://web.archive.org/web/20120303171600/http://davidleser.com/slippages/uploads/download/file/df-9-138-28.pdf Margaret Fink: Her wild, wild ways] ''[[Australian Women's Weekly]]'', Jan 2007 (Download from Davidleser.com) * [http://www.austlit.edu.au/run?ex=ShowAgent&agentId=A%23Sh Hooton, Harry] Biography and other information at AustLit, The Australian Literature Resource (Full access requires subscription) * [https://web.archive.org/web/20160817134709/http://www.hootonics.com/ Hootonics] Research & Archival Website for The Harry Hooton Project (est. 27 June 2016) {{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hooton, Harry}} [[Category:1908 births]] [[Category:1961 deaths]] [[Category:Australian anarchists]] [[Category:Industrial Workers of the World members]] [[Category:Writers from Sydney]] [[Category:20th-century Australian poets]] [[Category:Australian male poets]] [[Category:English emigrants to Australia]] [[Category:20th-century Australian male writers]]