Rosemary Dobson has been admired as one of the finest and most enduring poets of Australia ever since the appearance of her first volume in 1944. Her long practice of the poetic craft is characterized by a measured cadence, love of the austere, devotion to traditional forms, and a poetic drive that she called in "Statement" (1989) " . . . a search for something only fugitively glimpsed." Dobson's poetic was firmly established early in her writing life and is recognizable in works spanning many years: her aesthetic is one of a continuous reworking of themes and concerns and a deepening artistic apprehension.

Rosemary de Brissac Dobson was born in Sydney, the daughter of Arthur Dobson (son of English poet Austin Dobson) and Marjorie Caldwell Dobson. Her father died when Dobson was five years old and her older sister Ruth seven; their mother was left to raise her daughters in straitened circumstances. Marjorie Dobson...