Cirrus@Austlit

Andrew Taylor's book of poems, Sandstone, contains descriptions of his young life at Warrnambool near the Southern Ocean. He studied Law and Arts at the University of Melbourne; then, in in his own words, 'instead of going to Cambridge for further study in England's literature, as I was expected to do, I went to Italy, where I lived for two years, teaching English and apparently squandering my future. It was the best move I ever made, because it confirmed my desire to be a poet.' Taylor returned to Australia in 1965 when Melbourne University offered him the position of Lockie Fellow in Australian Literature and Creative Writing. He taught at Melbourne University until the end of 1979; then the American Council of Learned Societies offered him a fellowship to study contemporary American poetry in the USA. He was also offered a lectureship in English at Adelaide University. He accepted both offers. He had a year at the State University of New York in Buffalo, reading American poetry and meeting the poets: among them Alan Ginsberg, Ed Dorn, Gregory Corso, Galway Kinnell, WS Merwin, Dianne Wakowski, Erica Jong, and Robert Bly. Since then Taylor has been a regular visitor to the USA.

Taylor taught at the English Department of the University of Adelaide until 1992 when he became the foundation Professor of English at Edith Cowan University. He is now [2007] Professor Emeritus and Adjunct/Honorary Professor in ECU's International Centre for Landscape and Language. In 1999 he was a By-Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, and taught as a visiting professor in Germany. He has been active in literary circles, serving on committees of organisations such as PEN and the Australian Society of Authors. He has also been a member of the Literature Board of the Australia Council and officiated at Writers' Festivals. While in Adelaide he also worked with Richard Tipping (q.v.) and Ian Reid (q.v.) to found Friendly Street Poets (q.v.) in 1975. In 1985 he helped to establish the South Australian Writers' Centre (Australia's first writers' centre) and was its first chairperson.

Martin Duwell (q.v.) has described Taylor as 'the youngest of the poets associated with Vincent Buckley (q.v.) at the University of Melbourne. Likewise, he is the youngest of the writers in Hall and Shapcott's (qq.v.) New Impulses in Australian Poetry (1968), but, though more or less a contemporary of John Tranter and Robert Adamson (qq.v), is not included in the former's The New Australian Poetry (1979)' (ALS 21.3, 2004). The contrast between landscape - usually Australian or European - and human experience is often a fundamental issue in Taylor's poetry. The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature has described him as 'an innovative, individual and experimental poet. Although his poetry is wide ranging in reflecting his extensive travels, it is also narrowly and finely focused, contemplative and inward.'

Taylor has also written more than sixty critical and scholarly articles and the libretti for two operas, The Letters of Amalie Dietrich and Barossa, 2001.