One's career is an intriguing accident, or design: I could never have been a novelist. An actor, maybe, or a journalist, or a sculptor. Possibly a science teacher: with plenty of cricket and soccer coaching to do after school, but teaching is far too hard; I recently described it as a squalid and dangerous occupation. In another age, perhaps an official of the Raj. India haunts me.

Born Richmond, Victoria 6 May, 1934.
Married, with four children.
Educated at Scotch College and the University of Melbourne.
B.A.,1956: M.A., 1964.
Worked at various jobs in the city for ten years.

• Lockie Fellow in Australian Literature and Creative Writing, Melbourne University, 1961-63.
• Various subsequent appointments leading to Chairmanship of Department of English, 1974-76 and 1984-5.
• Readership in English 1977.
• Harkness fellow at Yale University, 1965-67.
• Visiting fellow at the University of Exeter, 1973.
• Visiting Professor at the Universtiy of Venice, Ca'foscari, 1973.
• Has given many readings of his poetry in Australia, India, Britain, Europe, and North America.
• Elected Fellow of Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1984.
• Appointed to the Harvard University chair of the Visiting Professor of Australian Studies for 1987-88.
• Grace Leven Prize for Poetry, 1986.
• Dublin Prize for the Arts and Sciences, 1987.
• Personal Chair, Department of English, 1987.
  Human rights Award for Poetry, 1992.
• Director of the Australian Centre, University of Melbourne, 1989-1994.
• D.J. Ohearn Prize for Poetry, 1995.
• Age Book of the Year, 1995.
• General editor, Oxford Australian Writers, 1990-1996.
• Professor Emeritus in the Australian Centre, 1998-

He has travelled on behalf of the Department of Foreign affairs and Trade, or on behalf of the Australian Council, to Venice, New Delhi, Tokyo, Jakarta, Toulouse, Moscow and Leningrad. His honours and graduate teaching at the Australian Centre placed particular stress on the unique development of Australian culture and on the ways in which it relates to the cultures of other nations.