Presented by Professor Barry Spurr, Professor of Poetry and Poetics.

Poetry of the solitary state abounds, variously expressing the poets' own lives, ideological convictions, historical contexts and the sheer counter-cultural appeal of representing a human condition which, increasingly in Western society, is regarded as pathological. Poetry of solitude (blissful and otherwise) reveals a rich vein of thought and artistry, thematically arresting and technically compelling, from a range of authors over the several centuries of English verse. How do poets present solitude in contrasting historical periods? What are the different kinds of poetically-constructed solitude? Do men and women write differently about it? Does it have discernible, quantifiable influence on the technical matters of word-choice, imagery and prosody?

Barry Spurr was educated at the Universities of Sydney and Oxford and was appointed to the academic staff in the Department of English in 1976. He has concentrated his teaching, research and extensive publication on poetry, and is a leading authority on the life and work of T.S. Eliot. Earlier this year, The Times Literary Supplement described his most recent book, on Eliot, as a "wonderful journey" into its subject. Professor Spurr was made a Fellow of the Australian College of Educators in 2007 in recognition of an "outstanding contribution to education" and, in 2011, he was appointed to Australia's first professorial chair in poetry and poetics. He is currently engaged in interdisciplinary research for the University's newly-established Human Animal Research Network and for the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence project for the History of the Emotions.

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