ISSN 2411-9598 (Print)
ISSN 2411-4103 (Online)
European Journal of
Language and Literature Studies
May - August 2019
Volume 5, Issue 2
63
Andrew Taylor: Australia’s Poet of the (Extra)Ordinary
Ryszard W. Wolny
School of English and American Studies, University of Opole
Abstract
Andrew Taylor (1940-) has been regarded as one of the most significant living Australian poets largely due to
the fact of his unusual use of the poetic language and the selection of topics. He undoubtedly belongs to the
group of the poets, like John Kinsella, who create mastery in their so-called ‘niche’ market, quietly continuing to
produce compositions of remarkable quality, and receiving national and international recognition for their
achievements. Andrew Taylor’s Impossible Preludes (Poems 2008-2014) is a unique and beautiful retrospective
on life, love and everything in between, with its full array of extraordinariness embedded in the ordinariness of
everyday life. Each line is a story within itself, painting a picture for the reader to follow as vividly as one might
expect in an art gallery. Every poem is full of colour and weight as it takes you on a journey into the mind of this
creative and talented individual. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to disclose these elements in Andrew Taylor’s
poetry that make it so extraordinary in its ordinariness and find out possible sources of this idiosyncrasy.
Keywords: Andrew Taylor, Australian poetry, extraordinary, ordinary
Introduction
Born and bred Australian, Taylor has developed an interest in the world within and without his homeland. In his previously
published volumes of poetry, such as Travelling (1986) or Sandstone (1995), his attention concentrates upon the homely
landscapes, either big Australian cities like Sydney, Melbourne or Adelaide and Perth or he travels along country paths, in
bushland or the beach.
However, later volumes, such as Götterdämerung Café (2001), Rome (2005), Regret about the Wolves and Other
Poems (2006) or The Unhaunting (2009), take the reader to the world outside Australia, particularly to Germany
(Wiesbaden), Italy (Rome) or Poland (Opole). “Two Dates,” from the volume Impossible Preludes, is certainly a very unusual
poem not o nly because these “two dates” denote two different times – though close to each other – but rather because
they indicate two different spaces situated in two different geographical and climactic zones, one in Europe, Wiesbaden in
Germany, the home town of Taylor’s wife, and the other in Australia, Perth, W.A. where they spent two decades together.
The first part starts on the date marking the beginning of Northern hemisphere winter, 22 December:
“Two Dates”
1. 22 December 2011, Wiesbaden
So this is the official
start of winter.
Was that what Tuesday’s snow
was all about, not some meteorological mistake
or an over-eager Frau Holle
plucking her goose too soon?
Its tatty remnants still spread
