Graeme Dixon

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Graeme Dixon is a Noongar poet from Perth, Western Australia, born in 1955. His mother was a Noongar woman from Katanning, and his father was an English migrant who grew up at Fairbridge Farm. He belongs to the Stolen Generation: he was taken from his family at age three and spent years at Sister Kate’s. From ages 10 to 14 he lived in a Salvation Army boys’ home, and at 16 he spent nine years in Fremantle Prison, where he began writing poetry. After his release he struggled with alcohol and drugs, but he met his wife Sharmaine, who encouraged him to publish his poetry and pursue education. At 27 he started tertiary study in politics, communications and Aboriginal studies at Curtin University.

In 1989 his first book of poems, Holocaust Island, won the David Unaipon Award, part of the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards. His works include Holocaust Island (1990), Holocaust Revisited (2003), and he contributed to Echoes of the Past: Sister Kate’s Home Revisited (2002).