The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse is a major anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 of Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n poetry

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 edited by the poet Les Murray

Les Murray (poet)

Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...

. It was first published in 1986 and since has been expanded twice.

The anthology gives a broad view of Australian ranges in time from Indigenous Australian oral poetry composed before colonisation up to the late twentieth century. Except for dates it is without the contextualising apparatus of biographies and annotations: "The absence of notes and other prose apparatus is intended to focus attention solely on the poetry, and to leave room for more of." Another uncommon feature, as noted, is the inclusion of Indigenous oral poetry, these have been attributed here to the language group of their owners.

Poets in The New Oxford Book of Australian Verse

Robert Adamson

Robert Adamson (poet)

Robert Adamson is an Australian poet and publisher.-Biography:Adamson grew up in Neutral Bay and spent much of his teenage years in Gosford Boys Home for juvenile offenders. He discovered poetry while educating himself in Gaol in his 20s. His first book, Canticles on the Skin, was published in 1970...

 – Allen Afterman – Alan Alexander – Marion Alexopoulos – Richard James Allen

Richard James Allen

Richard James Allen is a contemporary Australian poet, dancer and filmmaker. The former Artistic Director of the , and founding director of the , Richard was Co-Artistic Director with Karen Pearlman of That Was Fast and Tasdance , and now at The Physical TV Company .Richard James Allen recently...

 – Ethel Anderson

Ethel Anderson

Ethel Anderson was an early twentieth century Australian poetess, essayist, novelist and painter. She considered herself to be mainly a poet, but is now best appreciated for her witty and ironic stories...

 – Joan Aronsten – Dorothy Auchterlonie

Dorothy Auchterlonie

Dorothy Auchterlonie AO was an English-born Australian academic, literary critic and poet.-Life:Auchterlonie was born in Sunderland, County Durham in England...

 – Awabakal people

Awabakal people

The Awabakal are an Indigenous Australian people of coastal New South Wales.Awaba is the word for Lake Macquarie – Awabakal therefore meaning people of Lake Macquarie...

 – Lex Banning

Lex Banning

Arthur Alexander Banning was an Australian lyric poet.Disabled from birth by cerebral palsy, he was unable to speak clearly or to write with a pen. "Yet he overcame his handicap to produce poems which were often hauntingly beautiful and frequently ironic, and gave to other, younger poets a strong...

 – Bruce Beaver

Bruce Beaver

Bruce Victor Beaver was an Australian poet and novelist.-Biography:Beaver was born in Manly, New South Wales. He was educated at the Manly Public School and at the Sydney Boys' High School...

 – Judith Beveridge

Judith Beveridge

Judith Beveridge is a contemporary Australian poet, editor and academic.-Biography:Judith Beveridge was born in London, England, arriving in Australia with her parents in 1960. Completing a BA at UTS she has worked in libraries, teaching, as a researcher and in environmental regeneration...

 – John Blight

John Blight

John Blight was an Australian poet. The name Blight is of Cornish origin.-Biography:Born in Unley, South Australia on 30 July 1913, Blight was educated at Brisbane State High School. During the Great Depression in Australia he tramped the Queensland coast looking for work...

 – Barcroft Boake

Barcroft Boake

Barcroft Henry Thomas Boake was an Australian poet.Born in Sydney, Boake worked as a surveyor and a boundary rider, but is best remembered for his poetry, a volume of which was published five years after his death....

 – Francis Brabazon

Francis Brabazon

Francis Brabazon was an Australian poet and a member of Meher Baba's mandali.Brabazon was born in London, but moved to Australia with his family when he was still a boy. At the age of 21, Francis Brabazon embarked on a quest to discover the relationship between beauty and truth. He studied music...

 – E. J. Brady

E. J. Brady

E. J. Brady was an Australian poet.He was born at Carcoar, New South Wales, and was educated both in the United States and Sydney...

 – J. J. Bray – Christopher Brennan

Christopher Brennan

Christopher John Brennan was an Australian poet and scholar.-Biography:Brennan was born in Sydney, to Christopher Brennan , a brewer, and his wife Mary Ann , née Carroll, both Irish immigrants....

 – John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton

John Le Gay Brereton was an Australian poet, critic and Professor of English at the University of Sydney. He was the first president of the Fellowship of Australian Writers when it was formed in Sydney in 1928.-Early life:...

 – Doris Brett – R. F. Brissednden – Vincent Buckley

Vincent Buckley

Vincent Thomas Buckley was an Australian poet, teacher, editor, essayist and critic.-Life:He was born in 1925 in Romsey, Victoria and was educated at both the University of Melbourne and the :University of Cambridge, and died in Melbourne in 1988..Buckley edited the magazine, Prospect, from 1958...

 – Ada Cambridge

Ada Cambridge

Ada Cambridge , later known as Ada Cross, was an English writer.Overall she wrote more than twenty-five works of fiction, three volumes of poetry and two autobiographical works...

 – David Campbell

David Campbell (poet)

David Watt Ian Campbell was an Australian poet who wrote over 15 volumes of prose and poetry.-Life:Campbell was born on 16 July 1915 at Ellerslie Station, near Adelong, New South Wales...

 – Gary Catalano

Gary Catalano

Gary Catalano was an Australian poet and art critic.-Life:Calatano was born on 30 October 1947 in Brisbane. He married writer Helen Hewitt in 1990...

 – Marcus Clarke

Marcus Clarke

Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke was an Australian novelist and poet, best known for his novel For the Term of his Natural Life.- Biography :...

 – Hal Colebatch

Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch

Hal Gibson Pateshall Colebatch , also known as Hal G. P. Colebatch and Hal Colebatch is an Australian author, poet, lecturer, journalist, editor, and lawyer.-Personal history:...

 – Laurence Collinson

Laurence Collinson

Laurence Collinson was a British and Australian playwright, actor, poet, journalist, and secondary school teacher.-Biography:Born in Yorkshire, England, Collinson's family moved to Australia in 1930...

 – Jennifer Compton

Jennifer Compton

Jennifer Compton was born in Wellington, New Zealand in 1949. In the early '70s she emigrated to Sydney, Australia with her husband Matthew O'Sullivan. They now live outside Melbourne, Australia....

 – William W. Coxon – Julian Croft

Julian Croft

Julian Croft is an Australian poet and Emeritus Professor of English, University of New England. He was a founder of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature and co-edited its journal, Notes and Furphies for many years. In addition to gathering prizes for his published poems, he is...

 – Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon

Alison Croggon is a contemporary Australian poet, playwright, fantasy novelist, and librettist.-Life:Born in the Transvaal, South Africa, Alison Croggon's family moved to England before settling in Australia, first in Ballarat then Melbourne. She has worked as a journalist for the Sydney Morning...

 – Harry Cummins – Victor Daley

Victor Daley

Victor James William Patrick Daley was an Australian poet.He was born at the Navan, County Armagh, Ireland, and was educated at the Christian Brothers at Devonport in England. He arrived in Australia in 1878, and became a freelance journalist and writer in both Melbourne and Sydney...

 – Jack Davis

Jack Davis (playwright)

Jack Davis , was a notable Australian 20th Century playwright and poet, also an Indigenous rights campaigner. He was born in Western Australia, in the small town of Yarloop, and lived in Fremantle towards the end of his life. He was of the Aboriginal Noongar people, and much of his work dealt with...

 – R. R. Davidson – Arthur Davies – Bruce Dawe

Bruce Dawe

Donald Bruce Dawe AO is an Australian poet, and is considered by many as one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.-Early life:...

 – C. J. Dennis

C. J. Dennis

Clarence Michael James Stanislaus Dennis, better known as C. J. Dennis, was an Australian poet known for his humorous poems, especially "The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke", published in the early 20th century...

 – James Devaney

James Devaney

James Martin Devaney was an Australian poet, novelist, and journalist.-Biography:Born in Bendigo, Victoria, Devaney attended St. Joseph's College, Hunters Hill, entering the Marist Brothers juniorate in 1904. He took his vows in 1915...

 – Rosemary Dobson

Rosemary Dobson

Rosemary de Brissac Dobson AO is an award winning Australian poet, who is also significant as an illustrator, editor and anthologist...

 – Michael Dransfield

Michael Dransfield

Michael Dransfield was an Australian poet active in the 1960s and early 1970s who wrote close to 1000 poems. He has been described as "one of the most widely read poets of his generation." -Early life:...

 – John Dunmore Lang

John Dunmore Lang

John Dunmore Lang , Australian Presbyterian clergyman, writer, politician and activist, was the first prominent advocate of an independent Australian nation and of Australian republicanism.-Background and Family:...

 – Max Dunn – Geoffrey Dutton

Geoffrey Dutton

Geoffrey Piers Henry Dutton AO was an Australian author and historian.Dutton was born in Kapunda, South Australia in 1922 and died in September 1998...

 – Will Dyson

Will Dyson

]William Henry Dyson was an Australian illustrator and political cartoonist.-Early life:Dyson was born at Alfredton, near Ballarat, Victoria, Australia, the son of George Dyson, then a hawker and later a mining engineer, and his wife Jane, née Mayall. Dyson was educated at state schools at...

 – Teg Egan – Louis Esson – Steve Evans – Diane Fahey

Diane Fahey

Diane Mary Fahey is an Australian poet. She was born Diane Mary Brotheridge in Melbourne, Australia and currently lives in the Barwon Heads area, near Geelong....

 – Barron Field

Barron Field (author)

Barron Field was an English-born Australian judge and poet.-Early life:Field was the second son of Henry Field, a London surgeon and apothecary, and Esther, née Barron. Barron Field was educated as a barrister and was called to the Inner Temple on 25 June 1814...

 – Mary Finnin – Robert D. FitzGerald

Robert D. Fitzgerald

Robert David FitzGerald was an Irish-Australian surveyor, ornithologist, botanist and poet...

 – Conal Fitzpatrick – John Foulcher

John Foulcher

-Education:He graduated from Macquarie University with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours and a Diploma of Education. He has been a teacher in NSW and the ACT.-Literary career:...

 – John Forbes

John Forbes (poet)

-Life:John Forbes was born in Melbourne, Australia, but during his childhood his family lived in northern Queensland, Malaya and New Guinea. He went to Sydney University and his circle of friends included the poets Robert Adamson, Martin Johnston, and John Tranter...

 – David Foster

David Foster (novelist)

David Manning Foster is an Australian novelist. He is one of the most adventurous writers of his generation, publishing a range of satires and considerations of the decline of Western civilization...

 – Mary Eliza Fullerton

Mary Eliza Fullerton

Mary Eliza Fullerton was an Australian writer.Fullerton was born in Glenmaggie, Victoria, was educated at home by her mother and at the local state school. After leaving school she stayed on her parents property, until she moved to Melbourne in her early twenties. She was active in the women's...

 ('E') – Katherine Gallagher

Katherine Gallagher

Katherine Gallagher is an Australian poet resident in London.Gallagher's poems have been published in French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Romanian and Serbian....

 – Silvana Gardner – Leon Gellert

Leon Gellert

Leon Maxwell Gellert was an Australian poet.He was born in Walkerville, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. He was subjected to bullying by his father, a Methodist of Hungarian extraction, to which he reacted by learning self-defence at the YMCA.After an education at Adelaide High School, he...

 – Barbara Giles – Mary Gilmore

Mary Gilmore

Dame Mary Gilmore DBE was a prominent Australian socialist poet and journalist.-Early life:Mary Jean Cameron was born on 16 August 1865 at Cotta Walla near Goulburn, New South Wales...

 – Peter Goldsworthy

Peter Goldsworthy

Peter Goldsworthy AM is an Australian writer and medical practitioner. He has won awards for his short stories, poetry, novels, and opera libretti....

 – W. T. Goodge – Alan Gould

Alan Gould

Alan Gould is a contemporary Australian novelist and poet.Born in London Alan Gould's family lived in Northern Ireland, Germany and Singapore before arriving in Australia in 1966. He completed a BA at Australian National University and a Diploma of Education at the then Canberra College of...

 – Paul L. Grano – Jamie Grant – Robert Gray

Robert Gray (poet)

Robert William Geoffrey Gray is an Australian poet, freelance writer, and critic.-Biography:Gray grew up in Coffs Harbour and was educated in a country town on the north coast of New South Wales. He trained there as a journalist, and since then has worked in Sydney as an editor, advertising...

 – Gumaitj people  – Robin Gurr – Rodney Hall

Rodney Hall

-Biography:Born in Solihull, Warwickshire, England, Hall came to Australia as a child after World War II and studied at the University of Queensland . In the 1960s Hall began working as a freelance writer, and a book and film reviewer. He also worked as an actor, and was often engaged by the...

 – Philip Hammial

Philip Hammial

Philip Roby Hammial is an Australian poet, publisher, editor, artist and art curator. He has a long list of achievements in writing, publishing and sculpting...

 – Susan Hampton

Susan Hampton

-Biography:Susan Hampton was born in Inverell. New South Wales in 1949, and lived in Annandale in Sydney for many years. She has written eight books including poetry, fiction and and non-fiction, and her work is collected in many anthologies. Several of her books have won national awards. Her work...

 – Lyn Hard – Lesbia Harford

Lesbia Harford

Lesbia Harford was an Australian poet.Lesbia Venner Harford, daughter of E. J. and Helen Keogh, was born at Brighton, Victoria, on 9 April 1891. She was educated at the Sacré Coeur school at Malvern, Victoria, Mary's Mount school at Ballarat, Victoria, and at the University of Melbourne, where she...

 – W. E. Harney – Charles Harpur

Charles Harpur

Charles Harpur was an Australian poet.-Early life:Harpur was born at Windsor, New South Wales, the third child of Joseph Harpur — originally from Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland, parish clerk and master of the Windsor district school — and Sarah, née Chidley Harpur received his elementary education...

 – Max Harris – J. S. Harry

J. S. Harry

J. S. Harry is a contemporary Australian poet who has been described as “one of Australian poetry’s keenest satirists, political and social commentators, and perhaps its most ethical agent and antagonist.”...

 – Kevin Hart – P. J. Hartigan ('John O'Brian') – William Hart-Smith

William Hart-Smith

William Hart-Smith was a New Zealand/Australian poet who was born in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, England. His family moved to New Zealand in 1924. He had about "seven years of formal schooling" in England, Scotland and New Zealand before getting work at 15. His first job was as a radio mechanic...

 – Gwen Harwood

Gwen Harwood

Gwen Harwood AO , née Gwendoline Nessie Foster, was an Australian poet and librettist. Gwen Harwood is regarded as one of Australia's finest poets, publishing over 420 works, including 386 poems and 13 librettos. She won numerous poetry awards and prizes...

 – Dennis Haskell – Nicholas Hasluck

Nicholas Hasluck

The Honourable Justice Nicholas Paul Hasluck AM is an Australian novelist, poet and short story writer, and judge. He lives in Perth, Western Australia with his wife, Sally-Anne, and has two children.-Early life:...

 – Charles W. Hayward – Kristen Henry – Graeme Hetherington – Paul Hetherington – Dorothy Hewett

Dorothy Hewett

Dorothy Coade Hewett was an Australian feminist poet, novelist, librettist and playwright. She was also a member of the Communist Party of Australia, though she clashed on many occasions with the party's leadership.-Early life:Hewett was born in Perth and was brought up on a sheep and wheat farm...

 – A. D. Hope

A. D. Hope

Alec Derwent Hope AC OBE was an Australian poet and essayist known for his satirical slant. He was also a critic, teacher and academic.-Life:...

 – Robert Harris

Robert Harris (poet)

Robert Harris was an Australian poet-Life:Robert Harris was born in Melbourne. He was educated in Dovetown High School. He enlisted in the Australian Navy in 1968 during the Vietnam War. During the 1970s he spent time in a commune. He was married but separated from his wife in the 1980s with no...

 – Philip Hodgins

Philip Hodgins

Philip Ian Hodgins was a prize-winning Australian poet whose work appeared in such major publications as The New Yorker. Peter Rose called him 'probably the most loved [Australian] poet of his generation', noting that 'his admirers ranged from... Alan Hollinghurst to Ron Barassi and Peter Porter...

 – Harry Hooton

Harry Hooton

Henry Arthur Hooton of Sydney was an Australian poet and social commentator whose writing spanned the years 1930s-1961. 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"...

 – Barry Humphries

Barry Humphries

John Barry Humphries, AO, CBE is an Australian comedian, satirist, dadaist, artist, author and character actor, best known for his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage, a Melbourne housewife and "gigastar", and Sir Les Patterson, Australia's foul-mouthed cultural attaché to the...

 – Rex Ingamells

Rex Ingamells

Reginald Charles Ingamells was an Australian poet, generally credited with being the leading light of the Jindyworobak Movement....

 – Clive James

Clive James

Clive James, AM is an Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet and memoirist, best known for his autobiographical series Unreliable Memoirs, for his chat shows and documentaries on British television and for his prolific journalism...

 – Kate Jennings

Kate Jennings

Kate Jennings is an Australian poet, essayist, memoirist, and novelist.-Life:Jennings grew up on a farm near Griffith, New South Wales. She attended the University of Sydney in the late 1960s, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree with honours...

 – Martin Johnston

Martin Johnston

Martin Johnston was an Australian poet and novelist.Martin Johnston was born in Sydney in November 1947, son of the writers George Johnston and Charmian Clift. His early childhood was spent in London and Sydney. In 1954 the family moved to Greece...

 – Evan Jones

Evan Jones (poet)

-Biography:Born in Melbourne, 10 November 1931, Jones attended Melbourne High School, and studied at the University of Melbourne, and Stanford University . After 1960, he taught English at the University of Melbourne...

 – Kamilaroi people

Kamilaroi

The Kamilaroi or Gamilaraay are an Indigenous Australian people who are from the area between Tamworth and Goondiwindi, and west to Narrabri, Walgett and Lightning Ridge, in northern New South Wales...

 – Nancy Keesing

Nancy Keesing

Nancy Keesing was a Jewish Australian writer and editor.Nancy Keesing was born in Sydney, Australia and attended school at Sydney Girls' Grammar School, the Frensham School and then went on to the University of Sydney...

 – Henry Kendall

Henry Kendall (poet)

Thomas Henry Kendall was a nineteenth century Australian poet.-Biography:Kendall was born near Ulladulla, New South Wales. He was registered as Thomas Henry Kendall, but never appears to have used his first name. His three volumes of verse were all published under the name of "Henry Kendall". His...

 – John Kinsella – Andy Kissane

Andy Kissane

Andy Kissane is a Melbourne-born, Sydney-based writer. He has won several awards for his writing, including the Red Earth Poetry Award, the Sydney Writers' Festival Poetry Olympics, the John Shaw Neilson Award, the Publisher's Cup Cricket Poetry Award, the Harri Jones Memorial Prize for Poetry and...

 – Peter Kocan

Peter Kocan

Peter Raymond Kocan , Australian author and poet, is remembered in Australia for his attempt to assassinate federal Opposition Leader Arthur Calwell in 1966.-Life and career:...

 – C. J. Koch – Grandfather Koori – Martin Langford – Eve Langley

Eve Langley

Eve Langley , born Ethel Jane Langley, was an Australian novelist and poet. Her novels belong to a tradition of Australian women's writing that explores the conflict between being an artist and being a woman.-Life:...

 – Andrew Lansdown – Louis Lavater – Anthony Lawrence

Anthony Lawrence

-Biography:Born in Tamworth, New South Wales, Anthony Lawrence left school at 16, and has worked variously as a jackeroo, fisherman, teacher and writer. Lawrence has received a number of Australia Council for the Arts Literature Board Grants and has won numerous awards for his poetry, including the...

 – Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson

Henry Lawson was an Australian writer and poet. Along with his contemporary Banjo Paterson, Lawson is among the best-known Australian poets and fiction writers of the colonial period and is often called Australia's "greatest writer"...

 – Joyce Lee

Joyce Lee

Joyce Lee is an English writer and performer. Lee studied English at UCL and co-wrote "After the Flood" performed at the Old Vic .-External links:* http://www.writersguild.org.uk/plugins/show_writer.php?writer_id=1752&...

 – Geoffrey Lehmann

Geoffrey lehmann

Geoffrey Lehmann is an Australian poet, children's writer, and tax lawyer. Lehmann grew up in McMahon's Point, Sydney, and attended high school at the Shore School in North Sydney. He graduated in Arts and Law from the University of Sydney in 1960 and 1963 respectively...

 – Francis Letters – Jack Lindsay

Jack Lindsay

Robert Leeson Jack Lindsay was an Australian-born writer, who from 1926 lived in the United Kingdom, initially in Essex. He was born in Melbourne, but spent his formative years in Brisbane...

 – Kate Llewellyn – Robert Lowe – Frederick Macartney

Frederick Macartney

Frederick Thomas Bennett Macartney , poet and critic, was born in Port Melbourne, Australia. His byline was often just Frederick T. Macartney....

 – James McAuley

James McAuley

James Phillip McAuley was an Australian academic, poet, journalist, literary critic and a prominent convert to Roman Catholicism.-Life and career:...

 – Hugh McCrae

Hugh McCrae

Hugh Raymond McCrae was an Australian writer.McCrae was born in Melbourne, the son of the Australian author George Gordon McCrae. He was originally articled to an architect, but later took upon writing and acting, settling eventually in Sydney and Camden...

 – Ronald McCuiag – Nan McDonald

Nan McDonald (poet)

-Biography:Born in Eastwood, New South Wales, McDonald went to Hornsby Girls' High School , and studied at the University of Sydney . She worked as an editor for Angus and Robertson, where she specialized in Australian literature, with colleagues such as Alec Bolton, Beatrice Davis and Douglas...

 – Roger McDonald

Roger McDonald

Roger McDonald is the author of seven novels, two works of non-fiction, and a number of other works....

 – Jack McGuire

Jack McGuire

Jack McGuire, a Democratic member of the Illinois House of Representatives, has represented the 86th District since 1995.-External links:* official IL House website** * profile*Follow the Money - John C. McGuire...

 – Gordon Mackay-Warna – Dorothea Mackellar

Dorothea Mackellar

Isobel Marion Dorothea Mackellar, OBE was an Australian poet and fiction writer.The only daughter of noted physician and parliamentarian Sir Charles Mackellar, she was born in Sydney in 1885...

 – Kenneth Mackenzie – Rhyll McMaster

Rhyll McMaster

Rhyll McMaster is a contemporary Australian poet and novelist. She has worked as a secretary, a nurse and a sheep farmer. She now lives in Sydney and has written full-time since 2000....

 – Francis MacNamara (Frank the Poet) – David Mc Nicoll – Jennifer Maiden

Jennifer Maiden

Jennifer Maiden is a contemporary Australian poet.Jennifer Maiden was born in Penrith, New South Wales. She began publishing professionally in the late 1960s and has been active in Sydney's literary scene since then. She took a BA at Macquarie University in the early 1970s...

 – David Malouf

David Malouf

David George Joseph Malouf is an acclaimed Australian writer. He was awarded the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 2000, his 1993 novel Remembering Babylon won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, he won the inaugural Australia-Asia Literary Award in 2008, and he was...

 – John Manifold

John Manifold

John Streeter Manifold was an Australian poet and critic, known also for his interest in Australian folksongs. He was born in Melbourne, into a well known Camperdown family. He was educated at Geelong Grammar School, and read modern languages at Jesus College, Cambridge. While in Cambridge he...

 – Frederic Manning

Frederic Manning

Frederic Manning was an Australian poet and novelist.-Biography:Born in Sydney, Manning was the son of local politician Sir William Patrick Manning. His family were Catholics, of Irish origin. A sickly child , Manning was educated exclusively at home...

 – David Martin

David Martin (poet)

David Martin , known as an Australian poet, was born Lajos or Ludwig Detsinyi, into a Jewish family in Hungary . He used as well the names Louis Adam and Louis Destiny. He also wrote novels and short stories, and plays.He was brought up in Germany, where he first became a communist at age 17...

 (Ludwig Detsinyi) – Philip Martin

Philip Martin (poet)

Philip Martin was an Australian academic, poet, translator, critic and broadcaster.Born in Melbourne, Martin taught English at Monash University from 1964 and his poems have been published, anthologised and broadcast both in Australia and overseas.His poetic output was cut short when he suffered a...

 – Ray Mathew

Ray Mathew

Ray Mathew , an Australian author, was born in Sydney, NSW. Mathew wrote poetry, drama, radio plays and filmscripts, short stories, novels, arts and literature criticism, and other non-fiction...

 – Furnly Maurice (Frank Wilmot) – Harley Matthews – Philip Mead – Louisa Meredith – Miidhu – Sam Mitchell – E. G. Moll – Linda Molony – Rod Moran – Ian Mudie

Ian Mudie

Ian Mayelstone Mudie was an Australian poet and author from Adelaide closely connected with the Jindyworobak Movement, which he was associated with from 1939 onwards. In 1941 he moved to Sydney and became involved in Australia First...

 – Les Murray

Les Murray (poet)

Leslie Allan Murray, AO , known as Les Murray, is an Australian poet, anthologist and critic. His career spans over forty years, and he has published nearly 30 volumes of poetry, as well as two verse novels and collections of his prose writings...

 – E. G. Murphy ('Dryblower') – T. H. Naisby – Smiler Narautjarri – Narranyeri people – John Shaw Neilson – Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Oodgeroo Noonuccal

Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an Australian poet, political activist, artist and educator. She was also a campaigner for Aboriginal rights...

 – Nunggubuyu people – Mark O'Connor

Mark O'Connor (poet)

Mark O'Connor is an Australian poet, writer, and environmental activist. He has published several books of poetry on regions of Australia such as the Great Barrier Reef and the Blue Mountains, often collaborating with renowned nature photographers...

 – Bernard O'Dowd

Bernard O'Dowd

Bernard Patrick O'Dowd was an Australian activist, educator, poet, journalist, and author of several law books and poetry books. O'Dowd worked as an assistant-librarian and later Chief Parliamentary Draughtsman in the Supreme Court at Melbourne for 48 years;he was also a co-publisher and writer...

 – E. J. Overbury – Jan Owen

Jan Owen

-Life:Jan Owen was born Janette Muriel Sincock in Adelaide, South Australia, attending school there and in Melbourne, leaving early to work as a laboratory assistant...

 – Geoff Page

Geoff Page

Geoffrey Donald Page is an Australian poet, translator, teacher and jazz enthusiast.He has published over seventeen collections of poetry, as well as prose and verse novels. Poetry and jazz are his driving interests, and he has also written a biography of the jazz musician, Bernie McGann...

 – Vance Palmer – Pambardu – Charmaine Papertalk-Green – A. B. ('Banjo') Paterson – Grace Perry – J. A. Phelp – John Philip – Hal Porter

Hal Porter

Harold Edward Porter was an Australian novelist, playwright, poet and short-story writer.Porter was born in Albert Park, Victoria, grew up in Bairnsdale, Victoria and worked as a journalist, teacher and librarian. A car accident just before the outbreak of war prevented him from serving in World...

 – Peter Porter

Peter Porter (poet)

Peter Neville Frederick Porter, OAM was a British-based Australian poet.-Life:Porter was born in Brisbane, Australia, in 1929. His mother, Marion, died of a burst gall-bladder in 1938. He attended the Church of England Grammar School and left school at 18, and went to work as a trainee journalist...

 – Craig Powell

Craig Powell (poet)

Craig Powell in Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia is an Australian poet. For ten years, he lived in Canada before returning to his homeland....

 – Pudjipangu – Jennifer Rankin

Jennifer Rankin

Jennifer Rankin was a 20th century Australian poet and playwright. Rankin was born in and grew up in Sydney and went to Ravenswood Methodist School. She then studied English and Psychology at University of Sydney and completed a Diploma of Education at UNE in 1968...

 – Vicki Raymond – Alan Riddell

Alan Riddell

Alan Riddell is a bilingual labour relations lawyer and partner with the law firm of Soloway Wright LLP in Ottawa, Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Toronto and France's Institut d'etudes politiques de Paris...

 – Elizabeth Riddell

Elizabeth Riddell

Elizabeth Riddell was an Australian poet and journalist.Born in Napier, New Zealand, Elizabeth Richmond Riddell came to Australia in 1928 where she worked at Smith's Weekly and won a Walkley Award....

 – Nigel Roberts – Roland Robinson

Roland Robinson (poet)

Roland Edward Robinson OAM was an Australian poet and writer.Robinson was born in County Clare, Ireland in 1912. At the age of 9, in 1921 he was brought to Australia...

 – Judith Rodriguez

Judith Rodriguez

Judith Catherine Rodriguez AM is a contemporary Australian poet.- Life :Rodriguez was born Judith Catherine Green in Perth and grew up in Brisbane. She was educated at Brisbane Girls Grammar School, and graduated from the University of Queensland with a Bachelor of Arts...

 – Eric Rolls – David Rowbotham

David Rowbotham

David Rowbotham was an Australian poet and journalist.-Biography:Rowbotham was born in the Darling Downs of Queensland, in the city of Toowoomba. He attended Toowoomba Grammar School and studied at the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney...

 – John Rowland – Gig Ryan

Gig Ryan

Gig Ryan, born Elizabeth Anna Martina Ryan, 5 November 1956, is an Australian poet, and daughter of notable Australian surgeon Peter John Ryan...

 -Philip Salom

Philip Salom

Philip Salom is a contemporary Australian poet and novelist.-Biography:Growing up on a farm in Brunswick Junction in the South West region of Western Australia. Salom had an isolated childhood before boarding at Bunbury during his high school years...

 – Andrew Sant

Andrew Sant

Andrew Sant is an English born Australian poet.In 1962 Sant moved from London with his family to Melbourne where he finished his education...

 – John A. Scott

John A. Scott

John Alan Scott is an English-Australian poet, novelist and academic....

 – Margaret Scott – W. N. Scott – Thomas Shapcott

Thomas W. Shapcott

Thomas William Shapcott AO is an Australian poet, novelist, playwright, editor, librettist, short story writer and teacher.- Biography :...

 – Jemal Sharah – Michael Sharkey

Michael Sharkey

A/Prof Michael Sharkey is an Australian poet. Sharkey studied at the University of Sydney, where he was awarded a BA, and then he completed his doctorate at the University of Auckland.-Biography:...

 – Charles Shaw

Charles Shaw (writer)

Charles Herbert Shaw was an Australian journalist and novelist.Shaw was born in South Melbourne, Victoria. During the Depression years he held a variety of jobs in the countryside and his interest in writing led him to work at a newspaper in Forbes, New South Wales...

 – Dunstan Shaw – Graig Sherborne – R. A. Simpson

R. A. Simpson

Ronald Albert Simpson was an Australian poet and poetry editor, artist and art lecturer. He was one of the Melbourne poets, and had a long tenure as poetry editor of The Age.-Life:...

 – Peter Skrzynecki

Peter Skrzynecki

Peter Michael Skrzynecki OAM, is an Australian poet of Polish/Ukrainian origin.-Biography:Skrzynecki came to Australia with his parents in 1949, as a refugee from "the sorrow / Of northern wars"...

 – Kenneth Slessor

Kenneth Slessor

Kenneth Adolf Slessor OBE was an Australian poet and journalist. He was one of Australia's leading poets, notable particularly for the absorption of modernist influences into Australian poetry. The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry is named after him.-Life:Slessor was born Kenneth Adolphe...

 – Vivian Smith

Vivian Smith

Vivian Brian Smith is an Australian poet. He is considered one of the most lyrical and observant Australian poets of his generation....

 – Edith Speers – Peter Steele

Peter Steele

Peter Thomas Ratajczyk , better known by his stage name Peter Steele, was the lead singer, bassist, and composer for the gothic metal band Type O Negative...

 – James Brunton Stephens

James Brunton Stephens

James Brunton Stephens was a Scottish-born Australian poet, author of Convict Once.-Early life:Stephens was born at Borrowstounness, on the Firth of Forth, Scotland; the son of John Stephens, the parish schoolmaster, and his wife Jane, née Brunton. J. B...

 – Douglas Stewart – Harold Stewart

Harold Stewart

Harold Frederick Stewart was an Australian poet and oriental scholar. He is chiefly remembered as the enigmatic other half of Ern Malley.Stewart's work has been associated with James McAuley and A. D...

 – Billy Marshall Stoneking

Billy Marshall Stoneking

Billy Marshall Stoneking is an Australian-American poet, playwright, filmmaker, and teacher. His son C.W. Stoneking is a musician.-Childhood and education:...

 – Randolph Stow

Randolph Stow

Julian Randolph Stow was an Australian writer.-Life:Born in Geraldton, Western Australia, Randolph Stow attended Guildford Grammar School and the University of Western Australia. He lectured in English Literature at the University of Adelaide, the University of Western Australia and the...

 – Maurice Strandgard – Jennifer Strauss

Jennifer Strauss

Jennifer Strauss AM is a contemporary Australian poet and academic.Jennifer Strauss was born in Heywood, Victoria and educated at various boarding schools and Melbourne University. Working in academia she has published several books of criticism and literary autobiography as well as editing...

 – Norman Talbot – Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor (poet)

Andrew McDonald Taylor is an Australian poet and academic. Although he lacks the public profile of several of his contemporaries, he has since come to be regarded as a major figure in Australian poetry, with a body of work notable for its intelligence and its formal, emotional and geographical...

 – Charles R. Thatcher – Colin Thiele

Colin Thiele

Colin Milton Thiele, AC was an Australian author and educator. He was renowned for his award-winning children's fiction, most notably the novels Storm Boy, Blue Fin, the Sun on the Stubble series, and February Dragon.- Biography :Thiele was born in Eudunda in South Australia to a Barossa German...

 – Richard Tipping – Tjinapirrgarri – John Tranter

John Tranter

John Ernest Tranter is an Australian poet, publisher and editor. He has a long list of achievements in writing, publishing and broadcasting...

 – W. J. Turner – David Unaipon

David Unaipon

David Unaipon was an Australian Aboriginal of the Ngarrindjeri people, a preacher, inventor and writer. He was the most widely known Aboriginal in Australia, and broke stereotypes of Aboriginals...

 – Rod Usher – Brian Vrepont (B. A. Trubridge) – Robert Walker – Chris Wallace-Crabbe

Chris Wallace-Crabbe

Chris Wallace-Crabbe AO is an Australian poet and Emeritus Professor in The Australian Centre, University of Melbourne.-Biography:...

 – Francis Webb

Francis Webb (poet)

Francis Charles Webb-Wagg was an Australian poet who published under the name Francis Webb. "Diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia in the 1950s, he spent most of his adult life in and out of psychiatric hospitals, writing poetry against terrible odds." He is widely regarded as one of...

 – Richard Whately – B. R. Whiting – Lauren Williams – Amy Witting

Amy Witting

Amy Witting was the pen name of an Australian novelist and poet born Joan Austral Fraser She was widely acknowledged as one of Australia's "finest fiction writers, whose work was full of the atmosphere and colour or times past".-Life:Amy Witting was born in the Sydney suburb of Annandale, and was...

 – Wolaroi people – Wonguri-Mandjigai people – Sam Woolagoodjah – Judith Wright

Judith Wright

Judith Arundell Wright was an Australian poet, environmentalist and campaigner for Aboriginal land rights.-Biography:...

 – Fay Zwicky

Fay Zwicky

Fay Zwicky is a contemporary Australian poet, short-story writer, critic and academic primarily known for her autobiographical poem Kaddish which deals with her identity as a Jewish writer.-Life:...