Michael Thwaites’ poems reflect our times, troubled by wars and crises, groping towards elusive peace. They might be called milestones of a hum an pilgrimage, which begins in the anxious thirties, traverses the tragedy and triumph of the Second World War and continues through the turbulent post-war years to the present day.
There are islands of peace in the collection-a walled college garden, a Bach fugue, birdsong, an Australian autumn morning-to contrast with the thunder of Gallipoli or the epic of 'The Jervis Bay'. ln his more recent poems, the author reveals his deep, lyrical love for his country, his feeling for the Aborigines-the first Australians-and his recognition of the heroic element in the human spirit, as indispensable in peace as in war.
These are poems of joy and pain, of compassion, reality, of faith and hope for humanity.
Michael Thwaites was born in Brisbane and educated at Geelong Grammar School and Melbourne University, where he graduated in Arts. ln 1937 he was Rhodes Scholar for Victoria. While at Oxford he won the Newdigate Prize for poetry with ‘Milton Blind’, and later the King’s Medal for poetry. When war broke out he joined the R.N.V.R. and out of his war-time experiences arose his best-known poem, ‘The Jervis Bay’. After the war he took a B. Litt. at Oxford, and then returned to Melbourne, where he lectured for three years at Melbourne University. Michael Thwaites’ previous publications are ‘Milton Blind’ and ‘The Jervis Bay and Other Poems’. He has published poems in journals and anthologies in Australia, Britain and the United States.
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