Cirrus@Austlit

'Unlike many of his contemporaries, John Forbes (1950-1998) arrived at university as a poet who was not only writing with confidence and technical sophistication, but who already had his literary bearings, and thus a context for the new American poetry that had only just begun to have a serious influence in Australia. This essay explores the foundational period that culminates in Forbes' discovery of poetry as a vocation in 1967, detailing his reading habits, his education and his writing, the impact of an influential English teacher and his co-authorship of the earliest poem he would retain for his debut collection. In doing so, I hope not only to fill a gap in the biographical record but to investigate the basis of the poet's early achievement, while shedding some light on the highly developed sense of craft that characterised his work from the 197os until his death.' (Introduction)