David Bunn

Grew up in Mornington on the lands of the Bunurong people, Victoria, Australia. There I did my schooling, some sailing, learned five or six chords and a bit of finger-picking and did some folk-singing. In my teens Keats and Auden and Joan Baez seized me and I tried to write songs and verse for the next ten years.

Studied English Language and Literature at University of Melbourne starting in 1964.

I have worked as a paper boy, a shop assistant, an untrained hospital orderly, an untrained teacher, a novice beach-cleaner and as an untitled dogsbody in a ships chandlers, working on the big circular saws.

The Australian Public Service took me on as a clerk, a writer and researcher. Like many public servants I was dismayed by the Governor-General’s dismissal of the elected Labor Government in 1975. I was shocked to find that a clear majority of Australian voters preferred the Queen to democracy. That experience has restrained me from foolish optimism and made me very sarcastic about Royalty.

Then for forty years I worked in white collar trade unions in a number of roles including as an elected leader, an organiser and industrial officer. That was arduous but very good work which I have never quite given up.

After a long pause I took up writing verse again in 1998. I’ve spent a lot of time at it, and the housework suffers.

All these things get into the poems (maybe not the housework). As do my children, my wives, my singing in a choir and my currently off-again attempts at painting. Dylan Thomas said that he wrote poetry because he’d be a damned fool if he didn’t. It’s not much of an answer, but mine’s not that good. When I was fifteen the idea got in my head that I had to write a really good poem and I’m still trying. I don’t know why I didn’t leave the task to others and do not know what will happen if I succeed.