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in little or no intellectual impairment, he was afflicted by involuntary movements and poor co-ordination of arms, neck and face, because of which his speech was laboured and hard to understand. The disabilities were ultimately no barrier to effective communication nor to the respect and admiration of people who knew him.
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and Lex attended ordinary state primary and secondary schools through which he acquired superior reading skills and was introduced to encyclopaedias. Though denied a full secondary education, at the age of sixteen he was found a job at the Sydney
Observatory. There, he learned to type and was able to
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In 1962, he travelled to London and married
Australian paediatrician Anne Ferry. Through senior medical contacts who admired his poetry, Banning was invited to visit the Aegean Islands aboard a luxury yacht and develop his interest in palaeontology and his love of the work of Constantine P. Cavafy.
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Galloway concludes: "n compiling this collection, I have come to understand his appeal. His sculptured verse is wrought from figures of the past, from acute seeing in the now, from awareness of the significance of shadows which give meaning and dimension to the structure of images. You may hear the
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Lex
Banning was born in Sydney on 27 June 1921. His mother was half-Swedish, half Scots. His father (who died when Lex was aged four) was Belgian. His disability was cerebral palsy of a type brought about by insufficiency of oxygen in the bloodstream during or soon after birth. Though this resulted
26:, he was unable to speak clearly or to write with a pen. "Yet he overcame his handicap to produce poems which were often hauntingly beautiful and frequently ironic, and gave to other, younger poets a strong sense of the importance and value of their calling". Such younger poets included
146:!" For notwithstanding his own physical disability, Banning was the toughest of critics and no respecter of personalities. His acerbic wit was frequently expressed in blunt conversation, and some of his satirical verse did not bear publication for that reason.
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as an unmatriculated student in 1944. He graduated in 1948 with honours in
English and history. He was an active and enthusiastic participant in university affairs, including writing for and editing university publications. A poem of his,
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voice of thought, see the vision of clear sight, feel the brooding presence of an entity beyond the immediate grasp of the mind, and glimpse the monstrous and the beautiful apprehension allowed to a poet".
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Galloway observes that "the purity of the poem remains his concern as he expunges the element of self-expression in favour of the universal" and invites consideration of these lines from
120:, Piers Bourke, John Croyston, Mike and Marjorie Hourihan and Brian Jenkins. Accomplished jazz musician Ray Price and his distinguished wife Nadine Amadio were also close friends.
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which includes reliable biographical information. In writing this, Appleton received the benefit of access to a collection of letters in the possession of Dr Anne
Banning.
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For Lex
Banning, the fundamental task of poetry was compression, to which end the poet's skills and artifices were instrumental. He greatly admired the Japanese
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Later, Banning worked as a librarian at the
Spastic Centre while also writing for print, radio, film and television. He was a regular associate of
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142:. To a lecturer who described poetry as "not the wine but the brandy of literature", Banning sternly interjected: "Not the brandy ... the
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who met the poet in Sydney's
Lincoln coffee lounge, about 1950. Appleton later became editor-in-chief of the
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However, the marriage foundered and
Banning returned to Sydney in 1964, to live alone in a small flat at
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199:. He became depressed and unwell before his sudden death less than a year later on 2 November 1965.
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and media personalities including close friend and biographer
Richard Appleton, Joy Anderson,
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and, in 1983, was co-editor with Alex Galloway of the posthumous Banning collection
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241:, ed. R. Appleton and C. Galloway; Angus & Robertson Publishers 1987
22:(1921â1965) was an Australian lyric poet. Disabled from birth by
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Appleton, Richard "Lex Banning 1921â1965: a brief biography" in
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Greenhouse, Vic 1988 (for the Australian Bicentennial Authority)
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By good fortune, one of Banning's closest friends was the late
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The Oxford companion to twentieth-century poetry in English
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There was a Crooked Man : the Poems of Lex Banning
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256:Australian Dictionary of Biography Online Edition
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316:Galloway Alex "Introduction to the Poems" in
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161:its heart's desire among the whirling
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55:("Appo"), a bohemian writer and
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177:or the small space of a breath,
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272:Oxford University Press 1994;
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175:not though it search for ever,
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387:20th-century Australian poets
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170:but a prison to the dark soul
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181:and what it seeks is death.
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412:University of Sydney alumni
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168:a bounded, boundless place,
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377:People with cerebral palsy
166:For mind is as a universe,
157:The dark soul goes lonely,
80:Education and early career
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179:for the soul is immortal,
159:it seeks, but cannot find
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345:Apocalypse in Springtime
303:Sidere Mens Eadem Mutato
61:Australian Encyclopaedia
20:Arthur Alexander Banning
333:Everyman his own Hamlet
318:There Was a Crooked Man
239:There Was a Crooked Man
65:There Was a Crooked Man
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392:Australian male poets
339:The Instant's Clarity
288:(and at Google Books)
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163:planets of the mind.
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28:Clive James
361:Categories
299:Les Murray
203:References
190:Last years
42:Early life
32:Les Murray
86:Punchbowl
57:raconteur
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144:cognac
124:Poetry
131:haiku
282:ISBN
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101:Arna
96:1946
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