Luke Davies


Country: Australia
Language: English
Year of birth: 1962

(Sydney, 1962) is an exceptionally popular and well-known poet in his own country, Australia, and one who has also made his mark as a writer of novels and plays. He had his literary debut at the age of twenty with the poetry collection Four Plots for Magnets. Since then he has written numerous works that have caught people’s attention for their clarity, humour and the knack of not cutting themselves off from popular culture. He has been called a “postmodern troubadour”, one who is not afraid of sentiment.

Many of Davies’ poems deal with the physical and mental (re-)appraisal of the experiences of the urban dweller when in nature. Insistently but also playfully, he describes what people see and feel – during a bush fire, for example, or when coming across a disabled person on the beach. Davies’ poems testify to a strong, instinctive will to live and urge to survive.

His poetry is accessible and full of images, and it also appeals to the senses: in this last respect it is reminiscent of texts by such mystics as Meister Eckhart and William Blake, even though the reader might not immediately discover a central truth or deity in them. Furthermore, he does not sabotage his subject matter by the use of irony and scepticism, preferring to let it speak for itself.

Although he often focuses on human failings, on disasters and accidents, his poems – with the attention they pay to the physical, to desire and love – often have a particularly vitalistic feel to them, as if, behind everything, greater cosmic forces were at work. It is hardly coincidental that one of his great models is the American writer William Faulkner.

The poem Totem (2004) shows Luke Davies at his most versatile. It is one of the longest poems of recent Australian literature – sometimes epic, sometimes more reminiscent of a song, and sometimes evocative of classical didactic poetry.

Davies has won numerous prizes for his work – Totem gained no less than four prestigious awards.

Rob Schouten


Publications include:
Four Plots for Magnets (1982); Absolute Event horizon: Poems (1994); Running with Light: Poems (1999); The Entire History of Architecture … and other love poems (2001); Totem: Totem poem plus 40 love poems (2004).

 

Biography on Poetry International Web