Timoshenko John Aslanides, Australian poet. Winner British Commonwealth Poetry prize, 1978, 2nd prize Australian Bicentennial Literature awards, Sydney, 1988.
Background
Timoshenko Aslanides was born on Christmas Eve, 1943, in the Crown Street Women"s Hospital, in Sydney, to John Paul Aslanides (1901-1962), a 1925 immigrant to Australia from the Greek community in Kerasus (on the Black Sea coast) and Olive Emma Browne (1910-1993), daughter of a pastoralist family from Lockhart, near Wagga Wagga.
Education
Timoshenko graduated Bachelor (Music) from the University of Sydney in 1967 and B.Ec from The Australian National University in 1976.
Career
He began writing poetry after he moved to Canberra in 1972, where he joined the Commonwealth Public Service. He has since produced 13 books, as listed in the bibliography. This book was inspired by a remark, in a conversation with his mentor, by Judith Wright, who had written to him in November 1979, inviting him to lunch at her bush-cottage retreat near Braidwood, in southern New South Wales.
Because he is Australian-born and Australian-focussed and, since July 1985, a full-time professional Australian poet, he does not (and never has) identified as an "ethnic" poet.
Nor does he write "multicultural" poetry. Though he feels that most, if not all of his poetry has its origin in love, the context of this affection is the celebration of the natural and built environments of Australia, and the history and imaginative genius of the people.
Timoshenko Aslanides has worked as a full-time, professional poet since July 1985, when he resigned from the Australian Public Service.
the British Commonwealth Poetry Prize
British Commonwealth Poetry Prize, 1978.
Australian Bicentennial Literary , (joint second prize), 1988
The Canberra Times Artist of the Year, 2002.