I am a poet, teacher and scholar with a lifelong devotion to literature, education and the life of the mind (and heart).

 

For more than twenty years, I taught the great books of the Western tradition — from Homer to Heaney — in a liberal arts college. I believe, as Plato said, that "the object of education is to teach us to love what is beautiful". For me at least, poetry - understood in its broadest sense, encompassing the 'poetic mode' of experience - has proven to be one of the best ways of bringing myself and others to a direct encounter with the good, the true and the beautiful, whether through reading, memorising, writing (and writing about) poetry, experiencing it as "a way of happening" in the classroom, or contemplating its role in culture and the life of faith.

 

One of the great Orthodox elders of modern times, St Porphryios, once said: "Whoever wants to become a Christian must first become a poet". What did he mean? The Catholic poet David Jones saw an analogous relationship between "making this thing other" in a poem, and the sacraments of the Church. Zen Buddhism too sees a relationship between enlightenment and poetic experience, one that informs everything from the discipline of haiku writing, to the craft of Kintsugi and the precise rituals of the tea ceremony. Why should this be? Such questions animate my creative life, writing and scholarship. 

I am the author of two poetry collections: In Your Absence — named a Times Literary Supplement and Age Book of the Year in 2002 — and The Wind Outside (2016). My scholarship also focuses on poetry. My book The Enclosure of an Open Mystery: Sacrament and Incarnation in the Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, David Jones and Les Murray was published by Peter Lang in 2012, and my essays, reviews and commentary on poetry and great books have appeared in Quadrant, the Adelaide Review, the SMH, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, TEXT and Logos: A Journal of Catholic Culture.

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With qualifications from the ANU (BA Hons), the University of Sydney (PhD) and the University of Cambridge (Advanced Diploma in Theology and Religious Studies), I've worked in Executive roles in educational and not-for-profit organisations, served on academic and governance boards, held positions as an external member of academic appointment and scholarship panels at a number of Australian universities, and helped develop undergraduate and postgraduate scholarship programs for study in Australia and abroad. But teaching and poetry - not titles and degrees - are my real passions.

This site will gradually bring together my reflections on education, literature and culture. In time you will find conversations on great books, along with videos and podcasts, interviews, lectures, and selections from my own poetry and writing — all animated by a belief that great literature, like great teaching, enlarges our humanity and deepens our understanding of the world. For now, the site will be updated each week with a poem chosen from my two collections, until all my published work to date will appear here, along with new and hitherto uncollected work.