AustLit

American poet James Dickey visited Australia for the 1968 Adelaide Arts Festival. En route to Adelaide he made a stopover in Sydney as a guest of Poetry Australia. According to Max Harris in his Introduction to Harry Roskolenko's American Civilization (1970) Dickey admitted that 'his poetic sense of direction derived from his contact with the unpredictable and ferocious energies of the Melbourne 1940s'. (5) Dickey joined the American Army Air Corps and flew missions during World War II in the South Pacific and probably visited Melbourne during this time although he 'fought his war at a distance from the literary scene'. (5)