For as long as I can recall I have been interested in words; I am attracted to the quote from Dylan Thomas that it was language rather than ideas which led him into poetry.
Having read poetry from time to time over the years, I started to write in 2013. As I applied myself to the craft I learnt that, while passion and inspiration help, hard graft is at least equally important. It was here that I was very lucky in meeting supportive friends who mentored me and took the time to provide constructive criticism on draft poems.
Like many areas of the arts, self-doubt is a problem for many of us. I was fortunate that Les Murray selected several early poems for publication in Quadrant; this was a breakthrough which motivated me for several years.
When I entered the Tom Collins National Poetry Prize 2019 I was thrilled to be invited to fly to Fremantle for the awards ceremony and to receive Second prize for ‘The Straining Rowlocks’.
This encouraged me to seek the appraisal of other poems in subsequent competitions over following years.
Good poems take time to write. This is because so many ideas have been expressed before that the challenge is to find oblique angles and fresh connections. For me favoured areas for poetic exploration include the human condition and the natural world. In addition, I am stimulated by the interaction of memory and imagination. T.S. Eliot wrote in ‘Little Gidding’: “We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.”
I have published three collections: The Ablation of Time (2018), Strands and Ripples (2021) and Natural Light (2024). I am a retired lawyer who has a very supportive wife and two adult children. I live near the bush in the northern suburbs of Sydney.
David Atkinson – Poet, Australia 