Les Wicks
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Les Wicks is an Australian poet.
Wicks grew up in western suburbs Sydney. A skinny kid with asthma, he learnt to use his mouth to get into and out of trouble. Vietnam savagely divided his family and taught him early activism. By 17 Les had his first poem accepted & was school organiser for the students' strike of 1972. He did a history degree over some years as well as a variety of unskilled and semi-skilled jobs while living in Sydney and London. In the late 70s he embarked on his first publishing exercise - Meuse (with Bill Farrow) - and helped set up the Poets Union. From the 1980s he worked as a union industrial advocate.
He has been a guest at most of Australia's literary festivals, toured widely and been published in well over 150 newspapers, anthologies and magazines across nine countries in seven languages.
His fifth book of poems, The Ways of Waves (Sidewalk, 2000)celebrates the Australian summer. His sixth book, Appetites of Light (PressPress, 2002), is exploration of the qualities of light, while number seven takes readers to "peopled landscapes"... Stories of the Feet (Five Islands, 2004).
Stylistically, he spans both a vernacular performance poetry and more linguistically dense, often dark explorations.
Other projects include publishing and editing poetry outreach like Artransit which put poetry and art into Sydney & Newcastle (NSW) buses and Heritage Light which saw a poem published on the surface of the Parramatta River. He runs a workshop program across Australia called Plan to Be Published.
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