EDITORIAL

Bruce Beaver: RIP

A funeral service was held today for Australian poet Bruce Beaver, who died in his sleep last Monday, aged 76. John Tranter's obituary in last Friday's Sydney Morning Herald illustrates the high regard in which Bruce Beaver was held by both practicing poets and readers of poetry, who have enjoyed his verses for the past fourty years.

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Beaver is best known for his seminal collection Letters To Live Poets (1969), a series of poems addressed to poets both living and dead (in the case of Frank O'Hara, to whom the opening poem is dedicated). In hindsight, the book can be read as the beginning of a period of greater engagement in both Australian poetry and Australian society in general: "It's simply that I've come to be/ more conscious of the community/ world-wide, of live, mortal poets."

Written while Australian troops were still engaged in active duty in Vietnam, the incendiary fury of the letters is remarkable and deeply moving. Beaver's documentation of his own mental illness is also brave and will strike a chord with readers familiar with the trials of Francis Webb, Janet Frame and others.

Bruce Beaver was a personal inspiration for me and I had the fortune to meet him in 1993 as I was completing my Honours thesis on his work in the context of Rainer Maria Rilke's poetry. We exchanged several letters over the next year or two - as did a large number of Australian poets, both known and obscure. He will be missed because of the deep humanity of his poetry and its ability to express both a range of complex emotions. Our thoughts are with his partner Brenda at this sad time.