Cirrus@Austlit

'When David Halliday from Eureka Street asked me to pen an introduction to my father Bruce Dawe’s unpublished poems, I wasn’t quite sure at first. Even with the purest of intentions, bias tends to encroach upon subjective appraisals. I grew up amidst my father’s esoteric, impassioned recitations; his audience, consisting of my mother Gloria (his most ardent muse) and us children, was often called upon to critique his refined delivery. I could not have known then how much I would come to appreciate his wry and satirical sense of humour and the way his  sentiment crystallised from a uniquely Australian perspective. That was until my own exploration of the craft of writing poetry acted as a catalyst to delve more deeply into his work, discovering the profound linguistic pleasure it so generously offered. I remember calling my father in 2012 to read him my first poem, titled ‘Padstow at 4 pm’. ‘Talent is often found and developed in isolation’, he said. He encouraged me to send the poem to him. To my surprise, he saw potential in my tentative collection of thoughts, and so began years of written cursive correspondence. It was his encouragement that fostered my own curiosity and desire to see if I could follow in his footsteps.' (Introduction)

'World Refugee Week is an apt time to see the plight of asylum seekers and to hear their stories, but it is often hard to do so when these people are deliberately placed so far out of sight in detention. How can we sharpen the blurred images of those we dehumanise, and bring the face and humanity of the asylum seeker back into focus? ' (Publication summary)

 

A poem recollecting visits to the Jesuit-run Belvedere College, in the north of Dublin, where James Joyce undertook most of his secondary schooling.