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'For 50 years Wicks has performed widely in Australia & internationally. Published/broadcast in over 400 different channels, magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 33 countries in 15 languages. Stylistically, the poet sits between camps. Seen as both a 'stage' and 'page' poet, his work is a mix of accessibility and dense use of language. He is a master of capturing the vernacular.
'Poems are both humorous and fierce, often in the same poem. He has been a guest at the world's largest poetry festivals. Wicks runs Meuse Press, which has focused on poetry outreach projects like Artransit which put poetry and art into Sydney/Newcastle buses but that is just one of dozens of similar roles: some predictable like literary magazines while others range as far afield as publishing a poem on the surface of a river. The most recent publication edited is Outrageous - Guide to Sydney Crime. As a poet with a firm focus on content this collection eschews the traditional linear structure in favour of a theme-based exposition.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Works about this Work
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Worth Taking the Time
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , October vol. 27 no. 2 2023;
— Review of Time Taken : New and Selected Edition 2022 selected work poetry 'Time Taken, the New and Selected Poems of Les Wicks, marks a poetic golden anniversary and samples from some fourteen previous volumes. It is also a highlights reel in the way a Collected Poems is an autobiography. More than these, though, it is a reminder of how pungent, street-smart and inventive his reflections are on the life he has lived and the lives that have milled around him. He is sometimes so whip-smart that he risks but mostly avoids trailing into the smart-arsery of a less empathic writer.' (Introduction)
-
Worth Taking the Time
2023
single work
review
— Appears in: TEXT : The Journal of the Australian Association of Writing Programs , October vol. 27 no. 2 2023;
— Review of Time Taken : New and Selected Edition 2022 selected work poetry 'Time Taken, the New and Selected Poems of Les Wicks, marks a poetic golden anniversary and samples from some fourteen previous volumes. It is also a highlights reel in the way a Collected Poems is an autobiography. More than these, though, it is a reminder of how pungent, street-smart and inventive his reflections are on the life he has lived and the lives that have milled around him. He is sometimes so whip-smart that he risks but mostly avoids trailing into the smart-arsery of a less empathic writer.' (Introduction)