Bruce Dawe

Donald Bruce Dawe AO (born 15 February 1930) is an Australian poet, considered by some as one of the most influential Australian poets of all time.

Early life

Bruce Dawe was born in Fitzroy, Victoria, in 1930. His mother and father were from farming backgrounds in Victoria and, like his own sisters and brother, had never had the opportunity to complete primary school. He always had encouragement from them (the younger of his two sisters also wrote poetry) and his mother, proud of her Lowlands Scots ancestry, often recited poems that she had learned in her 19th century childhood. Dawe's father's ancestors came from Wyke Regis in Dorset, England, in the mid-19th century. Dawe attended six schools before leaving Northcote High School in Melbourne at 16 without completing his Leaving Certificate. Of the four children in the family, he was the only one to attend secondary school.

After leaving school at 16, he worked in a wide range of jobs: as a clerk in various firms, as well as a labourer, sales assistant, office boy in an advertising agency, and a copy boy at the Melbourne newspapers The Truth and The Sun News-Pictorial. He also worked as a labourer in the Public Works Department, as a tailer-out in various Melbourne saw-mills, and as a farm-hand in the Cann River valley.