Personal Choice Volume 2 No.23

Robert Clarke was born in Darjeeling, India, in 1911, and as a boy moved to South Australia where he spent the rest of his life. Robert had a long involvement with Friendly Street, co-editing the No. 8 Friendly Street Poetry Reader, and having poems included in 18 Friendly Street Readers. He wrote 5 books of poems: The Dogman and other Poem, Segments of the Bowl, Thrusting into Darkness (1978), Walking to Bethongabel (1986) and Equanimity (1996). He edited A Window at Night by Max Harris, co-edited Verse in Australia 1958 – 1961 and was anthologised in Tuesday Night Live (1993)

I met Robert in the late 1970s at Friendly Street Poets. He was an early support and encouragement for my own writing and I became a friend with him and his wife Dorothy.