Bruce (Victor) Beaver

Bruce Beaver has been publishing poetry for more than forty years, straddling the "before" and "after" phases of the poetry of 1968, the year imagined as bringing the reinvigoration of Australian poetry. Much of his work is in the confessional mode and reiterates a thematic of exploring the inner life and the emotional and mental challenges faced by the sensitive person. Writing in 1982, in The American Model, Thomas Shapcott argued that "Of Australian poets, I think only Bruce Beaver has been able to discover the vulnerability that leads to an opening up of creative range, not a withdrawal into self-pity or personal pleading." Beaver's first major work was Letters to Live Poets (1969), in which his experiments with confessionalism are foregrounded. Among the honors Beaver has received are the Patrick White Award (1982), the Federation of Australian Writers' Christopher Brennan Award (1983), and the Order of Australia (1991) for his contribution to Australian literature.