Famous Australian Poets

Remembered for the legendary poems Waltzing Matilda and The Man from Snowy River, Andrew Barton “Banjo” Paterson was an Australian bush poet who depicted rural life through his works. Initially a law clerk and a journalist, he later adopted the pseudonym Banjo, which was his favorite horse’s name.

Henry Lawson was an Australian bush poet and writer. Often referred to as Australia's greatest short story writer, Lawson is one of the best-known Australian fiction writers and poets of the colonial period. Also a nationalist, Henry Lawson contributed immensely to a popular Australian magazine named The Bulletin. In 1949, he was featured in an Australian postage stamp.

Judith Wright was an Australian environmentalist, poet, and campaigner for Indigenous land rights. Wright is credited with founding one of the earliest environmental conservation movements in Australia. Best remembered for her poetry skills, Judith Wright won the prestigious Christopher Brennan Award in 1976. In 1991, she was honored with the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry.

Mary Gilmore was an Australian writer and journalist. She wrote both prose and poetry and is recognized for her tremendous contribution to Australian literature. As a young woman, she became a school teacher and held utopian socialist views. She eventually started writing and gained fame as an author and poet later in life. 

Oodgeroo Noonuccal was an Aboriginal Australian poet, political activist, artist, and educator. She became the first Aboriginal Australian to publish a book of verse. She emerged as a prominent political activist in the 1960s and campaigned for aboriginal rights. She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire and won many literary awards.

Swedish-born Australian Karl Kruszelnicki, better known as Dr. Karl, was born to Holocaust survivors. The internationally renowned science commentator is a well-known radio and TV personality, who has won the Ig Nobel Prize and has been named a Living Treasure. He has also penned scores of books.

Steve Kilbey is an English-Australian singer-songwriter and bass guitarist best known for his association with the rock band The Church. He performs as a solo artist as well and has 14 solo albums to his name. A multi-talented personality, he is also a poet, painter, and music producer. As an artist, he has had at least two exhibits in US. 

Les Murray was an Australian poet, anthologist, and critic with a career spanning over four decades. He is regarded as "the leading Australian poet of his generation" and received numerous honors, including  Grace Leven Prize for Poetry and T. S. Eliot Prize. His works have been translated into multiple languages. He was known to be an unusually idealistic person. 

A. D. Hope was an Australian poet, essayist, and academic. He studied at the University of Oxford on a scholarship and returned to Australia, where he began working as a lecturer. As a writer, he earned both fame and notoriety for his scathing satire. He was a recipient of the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal, among other honors. 

David Malouf is an Australian writer widely recognized as one of the country’s greatest writers. He graduated from the University of Queensland and taught for a while. He began writing seriously in the 1970s and became a well-known author within years. He received the Australia Council Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature in 2016. 

Adam Lindsay Gordon was a British-Australian poet, police officer, and politician. He attended the Royal Grammar School Worcester as a boy. At the behest of his father, he became a police officer, also dabbling in politics later on. He gained a reputation as a poet as well. His personal life was deeply troubled and he shot himself in 1870. 

Jack Davis was an Australian Aboriginal poet and playwright considered one of “Australia’s most influential Aboriginal authors.” Also an Aboriginal Australian activist, he wrote extensively on themes related to Aboriginality and the Aboriginal experience. His work is included in the curriculum of many Australian schools. Davis was honoured with the Order of Australia Award in 1985. 

Kenneth Slessor was an Australian poet and journalist who worked as an official war correspondent in World War II. He was known for imbibing modernist influences into Australian poetry. One of the leading Australian poets of his era, he was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for his services to literature. 

Charles Gavan Duffy was an Irish poet and journalist active during the late 19th-century. He studied at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and began his journalistic career soon after under the guidance of political activist and journalist Charles Hamilton Teeling. Later in life, he moved to Australia and became the 8th Premier of Victoria.

Dorothy Hewett was an Australian feminist poet, novelist, and playwright, often credited to be one of Australia's best-loved and most respected writers. She studied English at the University of Western Australia (UWA) and wrote for a Communist newspaper under a pseudonym. Over time, she established herself as a prominent author of feminist literature. She received the Christopher Brennan Award.

Pam Brown is an Australian poet and writer. A multi-talented woman, she worked in many jobs as a silkscreen printer, postal worker, and bookseller when young. Later on, she taught writing, multi-media studies, and film-making to students. She has also worked as a librarian. She is a recipient of the ALS Gold Medal, among other honors. 

Peter Porter was a British-based Australian poet. Born in Australia, he had a difficult early life. He later moved to the United Kingdom, where he was able to establish himself in a successful writing career. He was made a Royal Society of Literature Companion of Literature in 2007.  The Peter Porter Poetry Prize is named in his honor. 

Marcus Clarke was a 19th-century English-born Australian novelist, journalist, poet, editor,  and playwright. His novel For the Term of His Natural Life is considered a classic of Australian literature and has been adapted into many plays and films. He became a major literary figure at a young age but was plagued by numerous issues, leading to his early death.  

After losing his father at age 2, Henry Kendall was raised on a farm by his mother. The Australian bush poet is remembered for his depictions of nature in works such as Leaves from Australian Forests. Throughout his life, he continued to switch from one job to another.

Poet James McAuley was known for his technical prowess in his works. Apart from teaching English at the University of Tasmania, he had also served in the army and edited a literary journal. He had also once got a bunch of nonsense poems published as modernist poetry as a joke.

Douglas Stewart was a 20th-century Australian poet, writer, essayist, and editor. He served as the literary editor of the Australian magazine, The Bulletin, for two decades. He published 13 collections of poetry and numerous short stories, essays, and articles in his prolific career. He also edited several poetry anthologies. He received the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 1967. 

Randolph Stow was an Australian-born writer, novelist, and poet. After completing his studies, he taught English at various universities while simultaneously pursuing a writing career. His best-known work, The Girl Green as Elderflower, is believed to be closely linked to his life. He was homosexual and struggled with his sexuality in an era when the LGBTQAI+ community was shunned. 

Colin Johnson, better known as Mudrooroo, had been raised in an orphanage and was later imprisoned for burglary. After beginning to write in prison, he spent some time as a monk in India. Best known for bestsellers such as Wild Cat Falling, he focused on Aboriginal characters and their issues.

Max Harris was an Australian poet, columnist, critic, publisher, and bookseller. He began writing poetry as a child and was already known as a poet by the time he started studying at the University of Adelaide. He co-founded a literary journal called Angry Penguins that promoted surrealism and progressive poetry. He was made an Officer of the Order of Australia. 

Son of Irish immigrants, Joseph Furphy aka Tom Collins moved from place to place before settling down to write Such Is Life: Being Certain Extracts From The Diary of Tom Collins. The work, now considered an Australian classic, was the only book to be published in his lifetime. His other works, which include a book of poems, were published posthumously.

Rosemary de Brissac Dobson had begun writing poetry at age 7. The Australian poet and anthologist had initially been an Angus and Robertson editor. She later won prestigious awards and honors such as the Patrick White Literary Award and the Officer of the Order of Australia.

Geoffrey Dutton was an Australian author and historian. He studied at the University of Adelaide, where he started writing for the avant-garde journal Angry Penguins. He went on to have a prolific career, during which he wrote or edited over 200 books across a range of genres. He was a co-founder of the paperback publishing company Sun Books. 

Christopher Brennan was an Australian poet, scholar, and literary critic. He studied at the University of Sydney and won a traveling scholarship to Berlin. This trip inspired him to become a poet. He later pursued an academic career while simultaneously composing poetry. He inspired many writers of his generation. The Christopher Brennan Award is named in his honor.

Ada Cambridge was an English-born Australian writer best known for her novels Materfamilias and Path and Goal. She wrote three volumes of poetry and more than 25 works of fiction. Several of her novels were serialized in newspapers. She became a famous writer and was chosen to be the first president of the Women Writers Club. 

David Campbell was an Australian poet. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, where his passion for writing developed. He became a popular poet and writer in the 1940s and wrote over 15 volumes of prose and poetry. He was lifelong friends with fellow poet Douglas Stewart. Besides poetry, he was also a talented rugby union player who played for England. 

Hal Porter emerged as a writer during the WWII with a collection of short stories. However, it took him few more years to establish himself as a successful author, publishing his best work, a memoir entitled The Watcher on the Cast Iron Balcony, in 1963.  Also a successful poet and novelist he was made an AM for service to literature.

Initially a postal clerk and then a teacher, Charles Harpur would often cut out poems written by him and collect them in a scrapbook, to be published later. His poetry depicted the untamed natural beauty of Australia. The Bush-Rangers, his second book, contains some of his best poems.

The only Australian to win the prestigious Newdigate Prize for poetry at the University of Oxford, Michael Thwaites had also worked for the navy and the Australian intelligence services, and also taught English. He remains best known for his works such as The Jervis Bay and Message to My Grandson.

Born to Irish immigrants in Australia, Bernard O'Dowd became a head teacher at 17. He lost his teaching job for his radical views and was branded a heretic, but unperturbed, he opened his own school. A talented poet, he had also worked as a lawyer, a journalist, and a librarian.

R. D. Fitzgerald had dropped out of university to become a surveyor in Fiji. During World War II, he was engaged in engineering surveys. His poetic works, such as Moonlight Acre, showcase his technical finesse. He spent much of his later life working as a lecturer and a reviewer.

After working at a number of odd jobs, such as working as a cow farmer and a fruit-picker, Bruce Beaver eventually became a full-time freelance journalist. At 17, he was treated for manic depression. He is remembered for his award-winning poetry collection Letters to Live Poets.

Though he had initially aspired to be an architect, Hugh McCrae later stepped into freelance journalism. He also experimented as an actor but later found success in poetry. His works such as Idyllia and Forests of Pan showcased his romanticism. He was also a skilled memoirist.

William Baylebridge aka Charles William Blocksidge was one of leading Australian writers of his time. Beginning his career with a booklet of verse entitled Songs o’ the South at the age of twenty-five, he went on to publish fifteen more books, containing poems and short stories, among which the best known are Love Redeemed, This Vital Flesh and Anzac Muster.

Son of an ironmonger, Frank Wilmot is remembered as one of the most innovative modern Australian poets. A tall, slim man, he worked at the Cole's Book Arcade for 35 years. Writing under the pseudonym Furnley Maurice, he created masterpieces such as To God: from the Weary Nations.