Michael Thwaites’ printed anthologies contain only a few of the poems he published during his years as a boarder at Geelong Grammar School, on Corio Bay in Victoria. In retrospect, more than that few stand scrutiny as poems from a writer of any age.
This selection of poems was published over several years in the school literary magazine If. They trace the development of a young poet from boy to man. We see themes emerging that would inform much of his mature work. We see him learning to address his peers in different moods and modes from the comic to the profound, and developing a public voice. We also may notice him reflecting, and learning from, poets he admired: Homer, Shakespeare, George Herbert, Tennyson, Robert Browning, A.E Housman, John Masefield, G.K.Chesterton and the Edwardian balladiers.