Biography.

Bruce Dawe (1930 -     )

Bruce Dawe was born in Geelong, Victoria. He was an altogether indifferent pupil and, at the age of 16 he left school and was employed for short-lived periods in diverse occupations. In 1953, however, he finished an adult matriculation course at night school and, in 1954, entered the University of Melbourne. He remained at Melbourne for only a year, but it was there that he met Philip Martin, whom Dawe acknowledges as the greatest influence in his literary concerns, and who remained a friend, and an advisor in his developing poetic skills after he left his studies. He became involved with Melbourne University Magazine (MUM), Compass, and Farrago also, at this time, and published the ‘Joey Cassidy’ stories in Farrago during that time.

      After leaving university he was employed in Sydney as a factory hand, and in Melbourne, as a postman prior to joining the RAAF. While he was serving in the force, in the years 1959 to 1968, he published two volumes of poetry; he also married a local girl, and completed his BA. He was a teacher at Toowoomba’s Downland’s College in 1971, a lecturer at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education in 1972 and, now possessed of an MA. And a Ph.D., from 1990 to 1993 was associate professor of literary studies at the University College of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba. Dawe is a productive writer who is both aware of, and concerned with, the brevity and suffering of life. In 1984 the National book Council of Australia nominated Dawe’s Sometimes Gladness: Collected Poems as one of the ten finest national publications of the preceding decade.

      Dawe is the recipient of the 1965 Myer Award for Poetry; the 1967 Ampol Arts Award for Creative Literature; the 1968 Sydney Myer charity Trust Award for Poetry; the 1979 Grace Leven Prize for Poetry; the 1979 Braille Book of the Year; the 1980 Patrick White Literary Award; the 1983 FAW Christopher Brennan Award; in 1990 a Paul Harris Fellowship of Rotary International; in 1992 the Order of Australia (AO) for his contribution to Australian Literature; and in 1993 an Honorary Professorship of the University of Southern Queensland in recognition of his contribution to the university.