University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia
After completing her schooling at Anglican institutions, Fay Zwicky entered the University of Melbourne in 1950, receiving her Bachelor of Arts (with honours) in 1954.
University of Melbourne, Parkville VIC 3010, Australia
After completing her schooling at Anglican institutions, Fay Zwicky entered the University of Melbourne in 1950, receiving her Bachelor of Arts (with honours) in 1954.
(This volume collects Fay Zwicky's body of poetic work fro...)
This volume collects Fay Zwicky's body of poetic work from her seven books alongside poetry uncollected and unpublished. It demonstrates an erudite and passionate crafter of language, and places Fay Zwicky at the summit of Australian poetry.
Fay Zwicky was an Australian poet, short-story writer, critic and educator. She was primarily known for her autobiographical poem "Kaddish", which deals with her identity as a Jewish writer.
Background
Fay Zwicky (born as Julia Fay Rosefield) was born on July 4, 1933 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia and grew up in suburban Melbourne. She was the daughter of Clifford Leslie Rosefield, a doctor, and Iris Naomi (Rothstadt) Rosefield, a musician.
An accomplished pianist by the age of six, Fay Zwicky performed as a soloist and, together with her violinist and cellist sisters, as a member of the Rosefield Trio.
Education
After completing her schooling at Anglican institutions, Fay Zwicky entered the University of Melbourne in 1950, receiving her Bachelor of Arts (with honours) in 1954.
Fay Zwicky began publishing poetry as an undergraduate, thereafter working as a musician, extensively touring Europe, America and South-East Asia between 1955-1965.
Later she settled in Perth, and in 1972 she was appointed to a lectureship in American and Comparative Literature at the University of Western Australia, where she taught until her retirement in 1987.
Zwicky's first collection of poems "Isaac Babel's Fiddle" was published in 1975. She has since published another seven collections, mostly since her retirement from the university.
Her second collection was "Kaddish and other poems" (1982). Its title poem, a lament on the death of her father, is also a vivid evocation of the life of an Australian Jewish family.
Zwicky also wrote tellingly about the patriarchal silencing of the voices and experiences of women, as in the very funny "Mrs. Noah Speaks", part of the poetic sequence "Ark Voices" from the same collection. Two of her later collections included "Ask Me" (1990) and "The Gatekeeper's Wife" (1997).
Many of her more recent poems have focused on such contemporary cultural and political concerns as the uses and abuses of power, the problems of refugees and violence, as well as continuing her probing of family and autobiographical themes.
Zwicky has also written short stories, collected in "Hostages" (1983), criticism and reviews, as well as editing anthologies.
Besides, she was a writer in residence at Macquarie University, Sydney in 1982; Rollins College, Florida in 1984, La Trobe University, Melbourne in 1985; Tasmania University, Sydney in 1985; and the University of Melbourne in 1987.
Fay Zwicky was a member of literature board of Australia Council, Sydney from 1978 to 1981, and later from 2008.
Zwicky was a member of the Australian Bi-Centennial Reference Group from 1982, and a member of the Human Research Ethics Committee at Charles Gairdner Hospital during 2003-2006.
Australian Bi-Centennial Reference Group
,
Australia
1982
Human Research Ethics Committee
,
Australia
2003 - 2006
Interests
music, reading
Connections
Fay Zwicky married Karl Thomas Zwicky on March 19, 1957, but they divorced in 1980. They had two children, Karl and Anna.
Then Fay Zwicky married James A.C. Mackie on February 23, 1990, but the couple divorced in 1991.