Left Behind, but Right in Front

As a young man, I was told that most Australian poets are Left because “it goes with the territory”; that I had to join the Left, or be left behind. But even then I could see that this “territory” was just a refuge for poets who lacked artistic vision, creative imagination and the technical skills that could make something of vision and imagination, had they had any. Defying pressure to conform to stereotype was very difficult, even if it was instinctive, but I knew that I had something original to say and was determined to make a significant poet of myself in the saying of it.

I am now approaching my seventy-fifth birthday. I have achieved my ambition of becoming a full-time, original and professional poet. Original, in that I apply my craft in novel ways, independent of prevailing and derivative practice; professional, in that it’s all I do: read, research, develop, write, publish and promote my Australian poetry, though I have not been able to make a living from it. Few…