AustLit

Prince began suffering the symptoms of schizophrenia in his twenties and completed his arts degree at the University of New England over nineteen years. He enrolled in a Masters degree in history in the early 1990s. It was while at university that he started writing poetry seriously. He reads Michael Dransfield (q.v.), Dylan Thomas (q.v.), Robert Frost (q.v.) and James McAuley (q.v.). After some time in the public service he settled in the Dandenongs to write fulltime and teach poetry. Prince lives on an invalid pension. He has had an involvement in the drug culture which he feels probably led to his schizophrenia. In 1998 he and three other poets all diagnosed with schizophrenia produced a volume of poetry, Loose Kangaroos. The four poets - Michael Crane (q.v.), Graeme Doyle, Sandy Jeffs (q.v.) and Geoff Prince -perform together as the Loose Kangaroos. Originally a trio brought together by Barbara Hocking of SANE Australia, their first performance was at the Museum of Modern Art at Heide in 1995. In 1997 Michael Crane was invited to join the group. The name comes from a poem by Sandy Jeffs, 'A Thesaurus of Madness' which collects colloquial definitions of madness such as 'I have a kangaroo loose in the top paddock.'