Drifters
“Drifters” is from the book No Fixed Address,
Bruce Dawe’s first book of poetry. Over the years,
Dawe has become one of Australia’s most popular
poets. He is credited with bringing about a cultural
shift in Australian poetry. Australians had previ-
ously considered their language to be a slight al-
teration of the English spoken in Britain, much as
Americans did in the mid-1800s, but Dawe, like
Mark Twain, showed with his writing that a par-
ticularly Australian idiom had developed, separate
from Britain, spoken in a way that only people in
his country spoke. Dawe combined his mastery of
Australian English with his deep understanding of
people on the outskirts of society and a sense of
rhythm that owed more to common discourse than
traditional poetic forms, and the result was a sur-
prisingly direct style that captured the public imag-
ination.
Author Biography
Donald Bruce Dawe was born in 1930 in Geelong,
Victoria, which is just outside of one of Australia’s
largest cities, Melbourne. He did not care much for
school and was poor at his studies, leaving school
at the age of sixteen and working as a gardener and
a postman. In his twenties, he finished school
through a series of equivalency courses, and in
1954 he entered the University of Melbourne. Al-
though his career at the University was brief—just
less than a year—Dawe made a lasting impression
Bruce Dawe
1999
Volume # 97