Vivian Smith

Vivian Smith was born in Hobart in 1933 and has lived in Sydney since 1967. These, the two oldest cities in Australia, play a central role in his poetry as in his life, providing key geographical and historical images in his exploration of notions of permanence and change, and in his quirky sense of the bizarre in ordinary life. Similarly his studies and teaching in French before his move to Sydney have given his work a distinctive timbre unusual in Australian poetry. For many years Reader in English at the University of Sydney, he is a central figure in Australian literature as teacher, critic, editor and translator. He has published seven collections of poetry and his awards include the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry and the Patrick White Literary Award. Les Murray has written of him, "From first to last there is an integral voice, a controlled richness of language and response, varied with great flexibility."