by Karl Schmude
Within a single year Australia has lost its two most popular poets. Les Murray died last April, and now Bruce Dawe, on April 1.
Dawe was widely celebrated as the “people’s poet”. He had a sublime ordinariness about him – a deep affinity with the lived experience of everyday people. He expressed the distinctive idiom of the Australian experience, conveying in common language our loves and longings, our fears and despairs, our sorrows and resentments. He showed how po…
