History 20th Century Poetry part 3

Australian poet, Judith Rodriguez, has been teaching poetry at universities internationally and at the Council of Adult Education for fifty years. She brings to this program a global knowledge of poetic forms and history. This is Part 3 of a three part series. Rodriguez taught English at La Trobe University from 1969 until 1985. In 1986 she was  writer-in-residence at Rollins College, Florida, an experience commemorated in her ninth collection Floridian Poems (1986). In 1989 she took up a lectureship in writing at Victoria College, which in 1993 became part of Deakin University, where she continued to teach until her retirement in 2003. Rodriguez's first poetry collection was published in 1962 as part of Four Poets, the others being fellow Brisbane poets David Malouf, Rodney Hall and Don Maynard. The title poem of her first solo collection, Nu-Plastik Fanfare Red: and other poems (1973), has remained an anthology favourite; it demonstrates her highly effective use of direct and forthright language and striking imagery.Water Life (1976) won the inaugural South Australian Biennial Literature Prize in 1978, while one of Rodriguez's most highly-regarded collections, Mudcrab at Gambaro's (1980) received both the Sydney PEN Golden Jubilee Award for Poetry and the Artlook/Shell Literary Award in 1981. The title sequence of poems celebrates life and sensuality through the eating of Queensland mud crab. Rodriguez is also known for her poems about women's experiences; the title poem of Witch Heart (1982), published by the feminist press Sisters, records a visit to Robyn Archer's play about the often disastrous lives of famous women performers, A Star is Torn.