Peter Goldsworthy

Born in Minlaton, South Australia, in 1951, Peter Goldsworthy grew up in various country towns, and finished his schooling in Darwin, the setting for his first novel Maestro. He graduated in medicine at the University of Adelaide, the city in which he still lives, dividing his time between medicine and writing. He writes in all genres, including the opera libretto; his novels make their way onto stage and screen; and he has won too many prizes to be listed here. But he pays the usual price for media prominence and multiple glory: all too often, his poetry is thought of as a sideline. On the contrary, it is at the centre of his achievement. No poet who so resolutely avoids the set forms gets quite so much in. His precise wit operates on every level, from the sonic (a concealed dove really does say hidden here, hidden here) to the conceptual (the human body really is packed tight like an attempt on the record of filling a Mini). The general impression is of a fastidious insistence that the particular comes first, and any general comment that follows had better be particular too.

Peter Goldsworthy's website