# John Foulcher

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Australian poet and teacher

John Foulcher John Foulcher, 2011 Born (1952-12-07) 7 December 1952 (age 73) Ryde, New South Wales Occupations Poet and teacher Known for Poetry Website http://johnfoulcher.com/

**John Foulcher** (born 7 December 1952) is an Australian poet and teacher.[1]

## Education

Foulcher graduated from [Macquarie University](/source/Macquarie_University) with a [Bachelor of Arts](/source/Bachelor_of_Arts) with Honours and a [Diploma of Education](/source/Diploma_of_Education). He has been a teacher in New South Wales, Victoria, [Australian Capital Territory](/source/Australian_Capital_Territory) and taught at [Radford College](/source/Radford_College)[2] until 2011 followed by Burgmann Anglican School in the Canberra suburb of [Gungahlin](/source/Gungahlin%2C_Australian_Capital_Territory) until retiring in June 2016.

## Literary career

His work has been widely anthologised and published in national newspapers and journals including The Age, The Australian, [The Sydney Morning Herald](/source/The_Sydney_Morning_Herald), The Bulletin, Quadrant, Heat, Poetry Australia, Meanjin and the [New Oxford Book of Australian Verse](/source/New_Oxford_Book_of_Australian_Verse).

From 1986 to 1994, his poetry was set for study on the New South Wales Higher School Certificate syllabus.[3] He has been the poetry editor of both *The Canberra Times*[4] and the Voices,[5] the magazine of the National Library. In 2010, he was awarded a writer in residency in Paris at the [Cité internationale des arts](/source/Cit%C3%A9_internationale_des_arts)[6] by the Literature Board of the [Australia Council](/source/Creative_Australia).

In 2012, he joined forces with the Sydney-based poetry imprint [Pitt Street Poetry](/source/Pitt_Street_Poetry) who republished his first collection from 1983 *Light Pressure* in a pocket format, and followed up with his new book of poetry *The Sunset Assumption* written during his Australia Council residency in Paris. This new book was published as an e-book, a paperback and a signed and numbered limited hardbound collector's edition with illustrations by Swiss artist [Judit Villiger](http://www.juditvilliger.ch/).

## Awards

- Prime Minister's Award for Poetry, 2022: shortlisted for *Dancing with Stephen Hawking*

- ACU Prize for Poetry, 2019: winner for 'Revising Casuarinas'

- Australia Council Residency at the Keesing Studio, Paris 2010–11

- Australia Council Grant for Established Writers, 2003

- [ACT Book of the Year](/source/ACT_Book_of_the_Year), 1994: winner for New and Selected Poems

- National Library Poetry Competition, 1988: joint winner for 'Kosciusko in Summer'[7]

- Australia Council Young Writer's Fellowship, 1980

- Australia Council General Writing Grant, 1977

## Works

- *Light Pressure* (Angus & Robertson 1983, Pitt Street Poetry 2012)

- *Pictures from the War* (Angus & Robertson 1987)

- *Paper Weight* (Angus & Robertson 1991)

- *New and Selected Poems* (Angus & Robertson 1993)[8]

- *The Honeymoon Snaps* (Angus & Robertson 1996)[9]

- *Convertible* (Ginninderra Press 2000)

- *The Learning Curve* (Brandl & Schlesinger, 2002)

- *What on Earth Possessed You* (Halstead Press 2008)

- *The Sunset Assumption* (Pitt Street Poetry 2012)

- *101 Poems* - selected poetry from nine previous collections (Pitt Street Poetry 2015)

- *A Casual Penance* (Pitt Street Poetry 2017)

- *Dancing with Stephen Hawking* (Pitt Street Poetry 2021)

- *The Night Stair* (Pitt Street Poetry 2025)

## Critical response

'Foulcher's *The Sunset Assumption* confirms his status as a thoughtful, melodious poet, one of seriously investigated religious beliefs, one morally attuned to the need for and the compromises of such beliefs.' Peter Pierce review in *[The Canberra Times](/source/The_Canberra_Times)*[10]

'Lovely in its poetic balance, *The Sunset Assumption* is well-crafted with its deep and subtle ‘voice’ and a unique imagination. I fell in love with this book because there is so much questioning and rich beauty within it.' Robyn Rowland in *Cordite Poetry Review*[11]

'Foulcher has always been a subtle (and non-dogmatic) religious poet. Even to an agnostic or atheist the poems here will almost certainly evoke a powerful sense of strangeness, of something quite-conceivably real but not reducible to words' [Geoff Page](/source/Geoff_Page) reviews *The Sunset Assumption* in *[Southerly (journal)](/source/Southerly_(journal))*[12]

'...technically skilled and careful, in the service of precise notations of scenes from the poet's emotional life.' Commentary on *Light Pressure* in the *Oxford Companion to 20th Century Poetry*[13]

'Foulcher is not a poet of dramatic gestures or strident convictions; rather, he is a poet of implications, implications that come from closely observed and imaginatively recreated particulars; ones that readers will almost certainly recognise as part of their own lives'. Geoff Page (ed) *A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry* UQP 1995.[14]

'Simple, direct and convincing, Foulcher's poetry reflects common human experiences - joy in the present, regret for the errors and omissions of the past and faith, mixed with a dash of apprehension, for the future'. Wilde, Hooton and Andrews (eds) *The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature* OUP 1995[15]

## See also

- [Poetry portal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Poetry)

- [List of Australian poets](/source/List_of_Australian_poets)

- [JohnFoulcher.com](https://web.archive.org/web/20120330231818/http://johnfoulcher.com/)

- [John Foulcher on AustLit](http://www.austlit.edu.au/run?ex=ShowAgent&agentId=A%23tm)

- Excel Studies in Literature: *The Poetry of John Foulcher* (Dr Barry Spurr, Pascal Press 1993) [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9781875312641](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9781875312641)

- Get Smart Study Guide: *John Foulcher* (Margaret Berg, Science Press, 1996) [ISBN](/source/ISBN_(identifier)) [9780855832599](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780855832599)

## Notes

1. **[^](#cite_ref-1)** [*Bibliography of Australian Literature*](https://books.google.com/books?id=yBpVHywjoVUC&pg=PA82), pg. 82-83 (Univ. of Queensland Press)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-2)** [*Life beyond Radford*](https://radfordcollegians.com.au/collegian/john-foulcher/), Radford Collegians

1. **[^](#cite_ref-.._3-0)** [""HSC Exams 2000""](http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/hsc_exams/hsc2000exams/hsc00_english/95EN_ENG.PDF) (PDF). Board of Studies NSW. Retrieved 9 May 2024.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-4)** ["Oxford Reference - John Foulcher"](https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095830792). Oxford Reference. Retrieved 9 May 2024.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-Austlit_5-0)** ["Austlit — John Foulcher"](https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A11226). Austlit. Retrieved 9 May 2024.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-6)** [Cité Internationale des Arts](http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/amr/literature2/pages/literature_-_july_2009) [Archived](https://web.archive.org/web/20111003063037/http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/grants/amr/literature2/pages/literature_-_july_2009) 3 October 2011 at the [Wayback Machine](/source/Wayback_Machine)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-7)** [National Library Poetry Competition, 1988](http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/v281)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-8)** [*Southerly: A Review of Australian Literature*, Volume 54](https://books.google.com/books?id=iXZDAQAAIAAJ&q=John+Foulcher) (book review of "New and Selected Poems")

1. **[^](#cite_ref-9)** [*Australian Book Review*, Issues 187-197](https://books.google.com/books?id=KFzlAAAAMAAJ) (book review of "The Honeymoon Snap")

1. **[^](#cite_ref-10)** [Canberra Times 25 August 2012](http://www.canberratimes.com.au/entertainment/another-planet-other-places-20120824-24pj7.html)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-11)** [Cordite Poetry Review 8 August 2012](http://cordite.org.au/guncotton/robyn-rowland-launches-john-foulcher/3/)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-12)** [Southerly Vol 72 No 2 2012 p 197](http://southerlyjournal.com.au/2013/03/04/true-crime/)

1. **[^](#cite_ref-13)** Ian Hamilton (ed) *Oxford Companion to Twentieth Century Poetry in English* OUP 1994 p171

1. **[^](#cite_ref-14)** Geoff Page (ed) *A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Australian Poetry* UQP 1995.

1. **[^](#cite_ref-15)** Wilde, Hooton and Andrews (eds) *The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature* OUP 1995.

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