Wednesday, August 4, 2010

Chris Wallace-Crabbe

Stopping all Stations is coming around fast, so pencil Saturday August 21 on your calendar. This month Chris Wallace-Crabbe is featuring and it's an opportunity not to be missed. Come along and enjoy some great poetry, short story and spoken word in general. Who knows - maybe someone will burst into song? It's a friendly atmosphere with great door prizes and food.

See you there.

Chris Wallace-Crabbe was born in 1934. After leaving school he worked at the Royal Mint, Melbourne, then, at diverse jobs. . He was Harkness Fellow at Yale University, 1965-67, Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard, 1987-8, and Visiting Professor at the University of Venice, 1973 and 2005. His first book of poems was published in Australia in 1959, but in the eighties he began to publish with OUP, with The Amorous Cannibal. Has given many readings of his poetry around the world, but never in Africa. His most recent books of verse include By and Large (2001), The Universe Looks Down (2005), Telling a Hawk from a Handsaw (2009 )and the bilingual Each Line of Writing Still Is to be Done (2006 ). He chairs the Australian Poetry Centre at the Wheeler Centre. Also a public speaker and commentator on the visual arts, he specializes in "artists' books", and all that might mean. Read It Again, a volume of critical essays, was published in 2005. Among other awards he has won the Dublin Prize for Arts and Sciences and the Christopher Brennan Award for Literature. Since his retirement he has been Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. Chris draws, plays tennis, and has penned the couplet, "Consumption of Australian wine/ Is a large part of my design."