AustLit

'The prolific Australian poet Bruce Beaver (1928–2004), author of a dozen collections of verse, from Under the Bridge (1961) to The Long Game and Other Poems (posthumously published in 2005), was born in the Sydney seaside suburb of Manly and spent most of his life there. As is noted in the online Australian Poetry Library, Beaver’s work “had a considerable influence on the development of the ‘Generation of 1968’ and the ‘New Australian Poetry’ of the 1970s”. He won several major Australian literary awards, including the Grace Leven Poetry Prize (1970, for Letters to Live Poets), the C.J. Dennis Prize (1995, for Anima and Other Poems), the Fellowship of Australian Writers Christopher Brennan Award (1982), and the Patrick White Award (also 1982). Beaver was made a Member of the Order of Australia, in 1991, for service to literature. Yet his formidable achievement is less remembered today than that of other Australian poets of his era, such as Les Murray and Judith Wright.' (Introduction)