Background
Philip Salom was born on August 8, 1950, in Bunbury, Western Australia.
Philip Salom enrolled at the University of Western Australia, where he studied Agricultural Science while also pursuing his interest in visual arts. Uninterested in his course, he left university, took various casual jobs, and started writing on a 1972 painting trip to New Zealand.
Philip Salom enrolled at the University of Western Australia, where he studied Agricultural Science while also pursuing his interest in visual arts. Uninterested in his course, he left university, took various casual jobs, and started writing on a 1972 painting trip to New Zealand.
On returning to Perth, Philip Salom enrolled in Curtin University's Literature and Creative Writing course, one of the first of its kind in Australia. Salom later received his B.A. in 1976 and Diploma of Education in 1981 from Curtin University.
(Simon reluctantly finds himself at the center of a contro...)
Simon reluctantly finds himself at the center of a controversy over two large sculptural spires he has constructed in his suburban backyard in Melbourne. A television interview results in a late-night phone call from a wife in Perth, of whom he has no recollection. Suddenly Simon is plunged into a psychological maelstrom that has at its center a childhood trauma so horrific in its consequences, he gradually realizes that he has been trying to escape from it all his life. Compelling, mysterious and erotically charged, Toccata slowly peels back the layers, ambiguities and complexities of one mans life. The result is a startling virtuoso performance. Phillip Salom has a well-established reputation as a poet and has won numerous Australian and international awards for his work. This book has been shortlisted for the 2004 Western Australian premier's Book Award.
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(When Peter Porter noted the brilliance of Philip Salom's ...)
When Peter Porter noted the brilliance of Philip Salom's poems and said they were unlike anything in Australian poetry, he was referring to Sky Poems (1987), an ironic otherworld of the twentieth century and the first book of the Alterworld trilogy. Salom later added The Well Mouth (2005), an underworld of limbo and stopped-life to counter Sky Poems' endless possibilities. Now the accidental realities of Alterworld reach into the twenty-first century but remain haunted by Salom's ambiguous visions of life and death. The poems have satirical verve and sensuality, and are layered in surprising linguistic echoes; his imagination is almost architectural but also acutely social. Alterworld is extraordinary and unique.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/192218666X/?tag=2022091-20
(Playback focuses on Jack Biner, a folklorist and oral his...)
Playback focuses on Jack Biner, a folklorist and oral historian who travels to the small town of Windrup to collect stories from the locals. His aim is to catalogue the intricacies of rural Australia, but as he begins his interviews he discovers that there has been, in the not too distant past, a number of accidents, the truth of which he is drawn to uncover. One man was shot in the head and rendered speechless. Another has his hand blown off and another is the victim of his own suicide. Everyone has a theory as to who is the good guy, and who is the bad guy, and the one who does know the truth, isn't saying anything. There's a woman too, Laura, with whom Biner falls in love during their clandestine affair. Part detective-mystery novel and part social history, Playback will appeal to those readers who like a ripping yarn, with a smattering of sex and mystery and also to those who demand more than "just a story."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1863683984/?tag=2022091-20
Philip Salom was born on August 8, 1950, in Bunbury, Western Australia.
Philip Salom attended Muresk Agricultural College (now known as Muresk Institute) and studied agriculture in 1967-1968. He then enrolled at the University of Western Australia, where he studied Agricultural Science while also pursuing his interest in visual arts. Uninterested in his course, he left university, took various casual jobs, and started writing on a 1972 painting trip to New Zealand. On returning to Perth, he enrolled in Curtin University's Literature and Creative Writing course, one of the first of its kind in Australia. Salom later received his B.A. in 1976 and Diploma of Education in 1981 from Curtin University.
On graduating he worked for two years as a research assistant on the Northam Research Station and then took a job with the Public Service in his old area of agriculture.
His first poetry collection was published by Fremantle Arts Centre Press in 1980. Since then there have been many poetry collections and two novels. Salom has won both national and international acclaim for his poetry. For most of these years he taught Creative Writing at Curtin and Murdoch University in Western Australia. Late in 1997 he moved with his family to Melbourne, Victoria. In the next years he lectured at Deakin University and finally at the University of Melbourne. In 2008 he resigned from lecturing and since then has been writing full-time.
His writing is distinctive for its metaphoric richness and expansive vision. It is also hugely various from title to title; his creative restlessness extends not only to style but also to conceptual paradigms. Since his first collection, many of his books have depicted imagined worlds or explored conceptually contained sequences - books such as "The Projectionist", "Sky Poems", "The Rome Air Naked", "The Well Mouth" and "Keepers". "Keepers" is part of a trilogy which is extended through two more books, "The Keeper of Fish" and "Keeping Carter", books ostensibly written by Alan Fish and MA Carter, respectively. These are heteronyms for Salom's recent work.
Since the "Keepers" trilogy, Flying Island Books (Macao) published Salom's pocket book of poems "Between Yes and No" in English and Mandarin, translated by Chris Song Zijiang and Iris Fan Xing. And in 2015 "Alterworld" (published by Puncher & Wattmann) completed another trilogy - "Sky Poems", "The Well Mouth" and "Alterworld" - of three imagined worlds in one set of covers. In 2016 his third novel "Waiting" was published.
In addition, Philip Salom has performed as a guest writer and lecturer in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Yugoslavia, Singapore and New Zealand.
(When Peter Porter noted the brilliance of Philip Salom's ...)
(Simon reluctantly finds himself at the center of a contro...)
(Playback focuses on Jack Biner, a folklorist and oral his...)
(Waiting is a story of two odd couples in prose as marvell...)
Philip Salom married Helena Salom in 1978, but the couple divorced in 1993. He has a son Brendan Salom from the first marriage.
In 1994 Philip married Meredith Kidby. The couple has a daughter Ceridwen Kidby-Salom.