Adrian Rawlins was born in Melbourne, schooled at Yarra Park State School, Koorong, Melbourne High School and the Cash family kitchen; was hailed as a poet by Hal Gye, Clair White, Edith Sitwell and Shelton Lea. He consciously avoided the literary ‘establishment,’ insisting on publishing in obscure venues: The Age Green Guide, Music Maker and Radiation from Space (a radical zine). In the early sixties he presented poetry and jazz for a longer period than Ferlinghetti, (Ferlinghetti said so in 1972) and has performed and read poems all over Australia. He is delighted to appear in Divan.
Alastair Rosie is now in his second year in Professional Writing (Diploma of Arts). Utilising the skills and discipline learned in class, he has become a regular writer for the Australian Jodie Foster Web Site. This site won a few coveted awards last year: the Cinemedia award, Geocities Featured List and A List Web Ring and Women Celebrities. The site continues to provide solid, reliable information on Jodie Foster. He also submitted his first manuscript Heritage Restored to a competition run by the Hollywood Network as part of the Opus Magnum Discovery Awards. He was one of the finalists and received a Certificate of Merit for his efforts. He hopes to have the manuscript published in the next few months and is currently working on his next novel. Since November 1997, he has been working with Carolyne Lee (course coordinator) on a project for Box Hill Institute that involves researching online resources, and writing web pages for the Institute web site. He is currently Production editor for Divan and official writer for the Australian Jodie Foster Web Site.
Alex Skovron was born in Poland in 1948. He is the author of three collections of poetry; The Rearrangement (1988) which won the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards, and was short listed in the NSW Premier’s literary Awards. His books are: Sleeve Notes (1992) and Infinite City (his book of 100 ‘sonnetinas’ is forthcoming). He has also published short stories and has completed a novella. A book editor since the early 1970s, he lives in Melbourne with his wife Ruth and their two teenage children.
Alison Croggon is a well known poet, reviewer, novelist and librettist. She is currently running the new magazine Masthead, and her latest book of poetry is called The Blue Gate (Black Pepper: 1997).
Angela Whiteside is a new Melbourne poet.
Brett Dionysus is a Queensland poet. He is also the director of the Queensland Poetry Festival, and edits Seriously Fishy.
Carolyne Lee has written and had published short stories, feature articles and book reviews, and her (co-edited) book Who'd be a mother? was published in 1990 by Angus & Robertson. She worked as a freelance writer and critic for The Age from 1985 to 1990, but gave that up to write her Master’s thesis. She has nearly finished her doctoral thesis, which is on narrative perspective in the post-romantic short story.
Catherine Bateson’s most recent collection is The Vigilant Heart (UQP: 1998). Catherine has directed La Mama Poetica for the last few years and works as a freelance writer and teacher.
Chris Wallace-Crabbe was born in Melbourne in 1934. Beginning as a cadet metallurgist at the Royal Mint, he worked at various jobs in the city before becoming Lock Fellow in Australian Literature in 1961 at the University of Melbourne where he is now Professor Emeritus at The Australian Centre. He has worked as an art critic for the Sydney Observer. Wallace-Crabbe has been Harness Fellow at Yale (1965 - 1967), Visiting Professor at the University of Venice, Ca’ Foscari (1973) and has held the chair of Australian Studies at Harvard (1987 - 1988). He won the Dublin Prize for Arts and Sciences in 1987. His Selected Poems (OUP: 1956’ - 94) won the D.J O’Hearn Prize for Poetry and The Age Book of the Year Prize. His most recent critical work is Falling into Language (OUP: 1990) and a new book of verse, Whirling, appeared in May 1988.
Cindy Wilson is a new Melbourne poet currently studying Poetry at Box Hill Institute.
Daniel Keene, is a a well known playwright, who has recently started publishing poetry.
David Reiter is a well known Queensland poet.
David Kelly is from Sydney. He runs the Poets Union, and edits Five Bells.
Doris Leadbetter is a well known Melbourne poet.
Dorothy Porter’s two poems in Divan are from Porter's eighth collection Crete, (Hyland House: 1996) her next book is forthcoming with Picador.
Earl Livings is a Melbourne poet currently teaching at Box Hill Institute.
Hugh Tolhurst is a Melbourne poet whose first collection Filth and Other Poems was published by Black Pepper in 1997.
Ian McBryde is Canadian-born and has been a resident of Australia since the early 1970s. He is well-published both nationally and overseas, and he has performed his work in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the USA. His third poetry collection, Flank, was published in June 1998.
Jacinta Holley is a new Melbourne poet.
Jayne Fenton Keane has been widely published and lives in the Gold Coast Hinterland.
Jennifer Harrison is a well known Melbourne poet, whose fourth book is due for release in September with Black Pepper.
Jessie Young is a new (15 year old) Melbourne poet.
Dr Jordie Albiston’s first collection of poetry, Nervous Arcs, received first prize in the Mary Gilmore Award, second prize in the Anne Elder Award, and was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Prize. Her second collection is entitled Botany Bay Document: A Poetic History of the Women of Botany Bay. Jordie was a recipient of the Dinny O’Hearn Memorial Fellowship in 1997, where she began work on her third book; a collection of documentary poetry about the last woman hanged in Australia. This book, The Hanging of Jean Lee, is due for release in September. She holds a PhD in literature.
Kevin Pearson’s latest book of poetry The Melbourne Elegies will be released in September this year by Black Pepper.
Ken Smeaton is a well known Melbourne poet, and organiser of various literary events.
Kieren Carroll is a well known Melbourne poet, who also performs and records with ‘The Beautiful Few.’
Kim Down’s first solo performance took place in 1965. He was twelve years old, playing trombone and accompanied by a pianist, and his knees literally knocked in terror. Luckily, his lips didn’t fail him. It has never been that bad again. Transmission modes include: brass, guitar, voice, print, faking it.
Kris Hemensley was born in England in 1956 and has lived in Melbourne since 1966. He has had many books and booklets of poetry and prose published including No Word No Worry (1970), The Poem of The Clear Eye (1975), Christopher (1987). Kris is the coordinator of Collected Works (poetry and ideas) Bookshop in Melbourne.
Larissa Robinson is a young Melbourne poet.
Lauren Williams lives in Melbourne, studies Spanish at La Trobe University, drives an old car and occasionally sings the blues. Her poetry has been widely published, broadcast, televised and performed. Books include Driven to talk to Strangers (in 'Live Sentences,' Penguin) and The Sad Anthropologist (Five Islands Press). Her forthcoming collection is entitled The Good Fish.
Lidija Cvetkovic is a Queensland poet.
Liz Hall-Downs has been appearing at poetry readings and performances since the early 1980s. She has been published in Australian and literary magazines, but performance has been her main method of transmission.
Lucy Roberts is a 21 year-old Political Science and French student at the University of Western Australia. She has recently returned from a six month exchange program with the University of Reunion Island. She writes poetry and short stories and has had a travel article published in the West Australian.
Lucy Williams has completed a B.A. (Hons)
in Literature and Poetry at Deakin University; and for over two years has
been co-editor of ars poetica. She has performed her poetry as an
invited guest at such venues as Chapel off Chapel and La Mama, and her
work has been published in various literary journals. Lucy Williams has
won and been highly commended in several national poetry competitions,
and is looking forward to the publication of her first book - a collection
of poetry - The Erogenous Zone.
L.R Trenton is a new Melbourne poet who is studying Poetry at Box Hill Institute.
Mal Morgan was director of La Mama Poetica and the Montsalvat poetry festival for many years.
Margaret Lock is a former student of Box Hill Institute.
M.T.C. Cronin is a Sydney lawyer and poet; she is co-editor of Cordite.
Mark Svendsen is a Queensland poet.
m.p French has been writing since 1992 and holds an Associate Diploma of Arts (Professional Writing and Editing), a Bachelor of Arts (with First-Class Honours), and is currently a PhD candidate (majoring in English Literature) at La Trobe University. Formerly editor of ars poetica and secretary of The Melbourne Poets, Martin’s work has previously appeared in LiNQ, Verandah, and Australian Short Stories.
Matthew Brown is a new Melbourne poet.
Melissa Ashley is a poet living in Queensland.
Meryl Leppard is a well known Sydney singer who has recently begun publishing poetry.
Michelle Taylor is a Queensland poet.
Mike Ladd was born in 1950 and grew up at
Blackwood in the Adelaide Hills. He has written poetry for a number of
different media, including live performance and video and radio. He
has published two books of poetry with Wakefield Press, The Crack in
the Crib and Picture’s Edge. He is Poetry Coordinator for ABC
Radio and currently works as the producer of Radio National’s program PoeticA.
Naomi Ballinger is a new poet who lives in Melbourne.
Nolan Tyrrell is a well known Melbourne poet.
Pam Edwards is a new poet living in Melbourne.
Patrick Alexander was born in Dublin in 1940. Educated in London, with three years at acting school, he came to Melbourne in 1960 and has remained there, except for nine years in Sydney in the late sixties and early seventies; it was there he began submitting to magazines. His publications include: Thrown Shadows (1976); five short poems, re-edited as one appeared in Poetry London (London, 1979); Effects of Remembrance (1994); Images Reflections Gathering Tributes (1995), amongst others. He has given several readings of Blake, of the pre-Raphaelites, and of Japanese Poetry in Translation at the National Gallery of Victoria. He has also read for other poets at every Melbourne Fringe Festival. The relationship of the voice and the written word in poetry is an abiding interest for him.
Paul Hardacre is a Queensland poet .
Paul Sanderson is a new poet residing in Queensland .
Philip Salom’s most recent publication is
New and Selected Poems. His earlier books include the international
prize-winning Sky Poems, Feeding the Ghost and The Rome Air Naked.
The poem Elegy For My Father, winner of
the prestigious Newcastle Poetry Prize in 1996, is part of a new manuscript
centred very much on Australia and the rich cultural shifts which have
taken place in the post-war era. He has also written fiction (Playback,
a novel, winner of the WA Premier’s Prize for Fiction), drama (a
play commissioned and performed by the Festival of Perth and later broadcast
on ABC RN), and literary reviews and articles. He is currently putting
together a new series of works for running on CD Rom and/or the Internet
with Meredith Kidby. In 1995/96 he exhibited two full-scale multimedia
installations and intends to create further works in this area. He has
travelled and read his work extensively as a guest writer in the USA, Canada,
the UK, ‘Yugoslavia,’ Italy, Singapore, New Zealand, and lived for short
periods in Europe, Asia and New Zealand. He is currently living in Melbourne.
Ray Liversidge is a well known Melbourne
poet.
Rebecca Edwards is a poet who lives in Townsville.
Rosemary Nissen Wade is an established Australian poet who has taught Poetry at Box Hill Institute and elsewhere.
Shelton Lea is a well known Melbourne poet who has published 10 books. He runs the publishing house Eaglemont Press.
Sherryl Clark is a writer, teacher and editor. She runs the radio program Writers at Work (3CR), and edits the women’s poetry magazine Poetrix.
Susan Hawthorne is a poet, publisher and circus performer. She has worked in the publishing industry for more than a decade, and is publisher at Spinifex Press. She is the author of a novel, The Falling Woman (1992), a collection of poetry, The Language in My Tongue, (1993), and The Spinifex Quiz Book (1993), as well as the editor of six anthologies, the latest of which is Car Maintenance, Explosives and Love (1997), and CyberFeminism (forthcoming 1999). Over the past few years she has been involved in various aspects of electronic publishing; including the development of the Spinifex web site, and the associated ‘BabelBuildingSite’ and ‘Feminist Publishers in Asia Site.’ She is currently working on two projects, a non-fiction book, and a series of hypertext poems, Unstopped Mouths, for which she has recently received an Arts Victoria Development Grant.
Terry Jaensch is a new Melbourne poet.
Tony Page is a Melbourne poet now living
in Thailand.