Chris Wallace-Crabbe--poet, critic, and scholar--is central to contemporary Australian poetry. Originally one of the "Melbourne University poets," he was among the first (in the late 1950s) to represent Australian suburbia in poetry. His interest in Australia is coupled with a deep engagement with the wider world. He is an internationally recognized academic, and his engagement with prose poetry and American poetry took place notably early in Australia. He is also one of the few living Australian poets with an international reputation.

Wallace-Crabbe's poetry developed from ethical-formalist beginnings to include interests in politics and the self. His publications in the Oxford Poets Series, especially, are an important and accomplished body of work. Strongly attracted to the Australian vernacular and the quotidian, Wallace-Crabbe's poetry is marked by dualism. While characteristically elegiac, it also looks to the world of ideas and nature as sources of replenishment and joy.

Christopher Keith Wallace-Crabbe...