Letters to Live Poets (1969) is a series of confessional poems arranged as a livre compose. It is a major work of Australian poetry having had a profound influence since it was first published. Letters to Live Poets won the Grace Leven poetry prize in 1970, and has also won a number of other awards. Bruce Beaver was born in 1928. He wrote his first poem at 8 p.m. on the evening of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Unlike the event it wasn't memorable. However, he kept on writing. Letters to live poets is his fourth book of poems; he has recently completed his fifteenth. He has been called a confessional poet, probably because of a strong autobiographical tendency in his writing. Letters is generally acknowledged to be his best work.
