Collected Poems

This is a collection of selections from the finest of Timoshenko Aslanides’ poetry. In a lifetime dedicated to writing and publishing Australian poetry, Timoshenko Aslanides has produced fifteen books of poems.

In celebrating Australia’s people, landscape and history, Aslanides has also defined Australian mythologies in national culture. These are the poems by which he will be
best remembered. They are also poems that will be read with pleasure by anyone wishing to enjoy evocations of the people and places in Australia’s past, appreciate the immediacy of a poet’s life and share his optimism and aspirations for the country’s future.
Aslanides acknowledges that being mentored in poetry by Judith Wright, taught musical composition by Peter Sculthorpe and piano by Freda Franks, were privileged “apprenticeships” with such artists. By integrating and applying his expertise in these arts Timoshenko has been able to produce the very poetry we instinctively reach for in celebrating a triumph, commiserating in tragedy, enjoying private friendships, honouring public commitments – and pleasing ourselves.
His first book of poems, The Greek Connection, won him the British Commonwealth Poetry Prize for 1978 for the best first book of poems in English, published the previous year in the British Commonwealth of Nations.