Four generations of a famous Australian family will be connected through poetry later this month, when Dr Toby Davidson delivers the John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library (JCPML) Visiting Scholar Lecture at Curtin University.<\/p>\n
Dr Davidson, 37, an award-winning poet and Australian literature lecturer from Macquarie University in Sydney, shares a love of poetry with his great-grandfather John Curtin.<\/p>\n
And although there is no evidence that Australia\u2019s wartime Prime Minister fancied himself as a poet, Dr Davidson says it is clear that poetry influenced some of his most important speeches.<\/p>\n
Dr Davidson\u2019s lecture will be entitled \u201cGood For The Soul: John Curtin\u2019s Life With Poetry\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say that poetry made up the majority of his book collection but the amount of poetry is still significant,\u201d Dr Davidson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been fascinating to go through the collection. His copy of Dante\u2019s Inferno, for example, has a lot of notations but isn’t directly referenced in his speeches.<\/p>\n
\u201cOther books in the collection haven\u2019t been as marked up but you can definitely see where they have influenced speeches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also clear that people knew he liked poetry. In 1944 and 1945, when he was ailing, people sent him anthologies of poetry, I think in the hope that it would soothe him a bit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Davidson, who arrived at Curtin University on 15 April and will be a guest scholar at the JCPML until 30 April, says he is accustomed to seeing his great-grandfather\u2019s name and likeness around the Bentley Campus.<\/p>\n
But speaking about his life \u2013 and studying within the library named in his honour \u2013 is a new experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started coming to the JCMPL lectures as a teenager – I remember seeing Gough Whitlam, Paul Keating, Natasha Stott Despoja and Hazel Hawke speak,\u201d Dr Davidson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI do often get asked if that\u2019s a bit surreal but really it\u2019s just part of our family\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo actually be giving a lecture of my own though, as part of the JCPML \u2013 that\u2019s completely different.\u201d<\/p>\n
The JCMPL Visiting Scholar Lecture will take place on 30 April.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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