Papers of Bruce Dawe
MSS 232
Collection Title
Papers of Bruce DaweCollection Identifier
MSS 232Inclusive date(s)
1969 to 1997Extent and Medium
Creator(s)
Category
Subject: Terms(s)
Subject: Person(s)
Collection Description
The collection includes correspondence, manuscript and typescript drafts, newspaper clippings, photographs and audio cassettes. The papers generally relate to Dawe's literary career during the period 1990-1994.
Administrative / Biographical history
Bruce (Donald) Dawe was born 15 February 1930 in Fitzroy, Victoria. Bruce Dawe's first poems were published under the pseudonym of Llewellyn Rhys while he was still at school. After leaving school at the age of sixteen, Dawe worked as a labourer, farmhand, clerk, gardener and postman. From 1959-1968 he served in the RAAF, completing his first degree and his first two volumes of poetry during this period.
He then taught English at Downlands College, Toowoomba, and in 1971 became a lecturer in Literature at the Darling Downs Institute of Advanced Education (later known as the University of Southern Queensland). In 1990, after completing his masters and doctoral degrees, Dawe was made an Associate Professor of the University of Southern Queensland, and appointed as the first Honorary Professor at the same institution in 1993.
A prolific poet, Dawe's work is often characterised by a light approach and the use of satire to explore frequently sombre themes such as the struggle of the individual to find meaning in everyday life, the domestic sphere, the effects of war, political oppression and corruption, and the importance of conservation. The Oxford companion to Australian literature praises his skilful use of 'speech cadences that combine the brashly colloquial of the spoken Australian language ... with subtle and deftly placed lyricism'.
Dawe's awards include:
Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Poetry, 1997: winner
FAW Christopher Brennan Award, 1983: winner
Patrick White Award, 1980: winner
Patricia Hackett Prize, 2003: joint winner for Evening on a country road
Patricia Hackett Prize, 2003: joint winner for Drayton Cemetery memory
National Book Council Award for Australian Literature, 1979: highly commended for Sometimes gladness : collected poems 1954-1978
Grace Leven Poetry Prize, 1978: winner for Sometimes gladness : collected poems 1954-1978
Dame Mary Gilmore Award, 1973: winner for Condolences of the season : selected poems
Sidney Myer Charity Trust Award for Poetry, 1968: winner for An eye for a tooth : poems
Myer Award for Australian Poetry, 1965: winner for A need of similar name.
Dawe's publications include No fixed address (1962), A need of similar name (1965), An eye for a tooth (1968), Beyond the subdivisions (1969), Heat wave (1970), Condolences of the season: selected poems (1971), Dimensions (ed. 1974), Just a dugong at twilight: mainly light verse (1975), Sometimes gladness: collected poems 1954-1978 (1978), Five modern comic writers (1981), Over here, Harv! (1983), Towards sunrise: poems 1979-1986 (1986), Speaking in parables (ed. 1987), This side of silence: poems 1987-1990 (1990), Mortal instruments: poems 1990-1995 (1995), Sometimes gladness: collected poems 1954-1997 (5th ed.) (1997), A poet's people (1999), Towards a war " twelve reflections (2003), The headlong traffic : poems and prose monologues 1997 to 2002 (2003), 'Hier und anderswo' / 'Here and elsewhere' : ausgewahlte gedichte / selected poems (2003) and Sometimes gladness " collected poems, 1954 to 2005 (2006).
References:
AustLit : The Resource for Australian Literature, March 2007.
Acquisition Details
Scope and Content
The collection includes correspondence, manuscript and typescript drafts, newspaper clippings, photographs and audio cassettes. The correspondence primarily dates from the period 1990-1994, and reflects Dawe's valued contribution to the Australian literary community. The collection features drafts for many of Dawe's poems, particularly those written between 1990 and 1994. There are also papers relating to Dawe's prose writings, including drama scripts, book reviews, and lectures and addresses. There is a comprehensive scrapbook collection of newspaper cuttings documenting Dawe's literary career from 1988 to 1994.
System of arrangement
The order of this collection has largely been imposed by Special Collections staff.
Access Restrictions
Other
This collection is available for research.Reproduction Restrictions
Existence and Location of Orginals
Related and Separated Materials
Further material relating to Bruce Dawe is located in the papers of Philip Martin, at MSS 309.
Separated Material
Further papers relating to Bruce Dawe are held by the Fryer Library, University of Queensland, at UQFL 111.
Disclaimer
This collection contains a variety of copyright material. Copyright is held by the creator of each item. Specific conditions for this collection are listed above. If no conditions are stipulated then the standard terms of the Copyright Act apply for published and unpublished items. Digitised material from manuscript collections is provided to clients by UNSW Canberra in good faith for private study and research only, and may not be published or re-purposed without the express and written permission of the individual legal holder of that copyright. Refer also to the UNSW copyright, disclaimer and takedown policy.