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Alex Skovron Alex Skovron i(A26578 works by)
Born: Established: 1948 Chorzow,
c
Poland,
c
Eastern Europe, Europe,
;
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1958
Heritage: Jewish
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BiographyHistory

Before emigrating with his family to Australia in 1958, Alex Skovron lived in Israel for 15 months. He attended Randwick Boys High School from 1961 to 1965, and gained a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Political Science from the University of New South Wales in 1970 and a Master of Arts degree in Government from the University of Sydney in 1972. While studying for his Master of Arts degree, he also tutored part-time.

From 1972 to 1977 he worked on the editorial staff of The Australian Encyclopaedia, 3rd ed. (Grolier) and from 1977 to 1979 he was general editor of The Concise Encyclopaedia of Australia (Horwitz). He spent part of 1979 overseas and, at the end of that year, moved to Melbourne where he worked as an educational editor with Macmillan, and later as senior editor with Century Hutchinson and with Dent/Houghton Mifflin.

His work has been published widely and he has been the recipient of literary awards for his poetry writing. His collection of poems, The Rearrangement, was highly commended in the 1989 NSW State Literary Awards also. His work has been read on ABC Radio, and he has read on SBS TV, as well as at numerous public forums in Melbourne since 1984.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2024 finalist The Joanne Burns Award National category
2023 winner Patrick White Award
2022 shortlisted Australian Academy of the Humanities Fellowships and Medals Medal for Excellence in Translation with Josef Tomáš for a translation of Elegies by Jiří Orten.

Awards for Works

Pitch and Yaw i "After the wind arose and morphed invisibly", 2015 single work poetry
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , May no. 371 2015; (p. 36-41)
2015 shortlisted Peter Porter Poetry Prize
y separately published work icon Towards the Equator : New & Selected Poems Glebe : Puncher and Wattmann , 2015 8380968 2015 selected work poetry

'This New & Selected Poems is a substantial and long-awaited compilation from one of Australia’s most accomplished poets, a retrospective spanning more than thirty years. The New Poems section, ‘Towards the Equator’, represents Alex Skovron’s sixth book-length collection and signals a return to the formal variety that has been a hallmark of his work. As always, a distinct Eurocentric sensibility sits alongside an engagement with Western art and culture. All six collections are characterized by close attention to craft, versatility of tone and technique, and a seriousness of intent seasoned at times with wry humour or playful wit. We encounter a rich assortment of voices, moods and scenarios as the landscapes of experience, the playgrounds of the mind and the theatres of the self are negotiated. Music, memory, philosophy, the creative spirit and language itself are focal-points; the dimensions of faith and the elusive quest for self-knowledge colour the shifting light; while Eros, in various guises, accompanies many of the poems across the plains and borderlands of the imagination. Recurring motifs in Skovron’s poetry include the perpetual tussle with history, the search for a clarity of vision, and our often ambiguous relationship with identity, with each other, and with the enigmas of time and remembrance.' (Publication summary)

2015 shortlisted Prime Minister's Literary Awards Poetry
Last amended 1 Feb 2021 12:59:21
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