Writer wins prestigious award

A CALIFORNIA Gully man was an “up-and-coming” poet decades ago but gave up writing because he didn’t see a future for his work in the Australian literary industry. 

Twenty-three years later and writing under the pen name T. A. R. Wallace, Toby Wallace entered a poem into the Lane Cove Literary Awards after being prompted by friends, and he won. 

“I was getting published in America and I was travelling in Slovenia with poets and publishers, and I couldn’t get published in Australia,” said Wallace. 

“I was always trying to get published in Australia, that was always my priority, but the Americans were the ones who liked them more. 

“I changed industry, I completely stopped writing. I had a book and a half of poems that just sat on my computer for 23 years. 

 “I just had a random conversation with some friends this year and said these poems are just going to die when I die. They said ‘Well, why don’t you get them out?” 

Although reluctant to enter, he saw a competition closing the next day, the Lane Cove Literary Awards, and decided to submit a piece from years ago. 

“I thought, what‘s the point even submitting a poem? I’m just going to waste 15 dollars because I’m not going to win it,” said Wallace. “Then, alright, I’ll do it. 

“I had a poem, and it was too long, it exceeded the requirement limits. And so, then I went to the second poem and I sort of thought alright, I guess I’ll use this one.  

“Anyway, then it got longlisted, shortlisted, and then it won.” 

Ironically, the successful poem was about despair, titled Song is the Solitude. 

“I cried when she rang me,” he said. “I said, this just feels so stupid because I wrote this 20 years ago.  

“To me, it was stupid, about what my life could have been, and a career could have been, that didn’t happen.” 

Wallace said he is more focussed now his yoga and meditation teaching, but at one time an American publisher said he was an Australian poet to watch. 

He said he does wonder sometimes what could have been. 

“Ridiculously, I just threw a poem randomly in a comp and it wins. I feel like now in Australia there’s support for writers, the industry’s changed,” Wallace said. 

“I think I was writing to contribute to other people’s lives, not just my own, so the idea of writing and it just sits in a box that no one ever sees didn’t feel right. 

“Surely when we’re writing poetry we’re talking to each other. If there are other writers out there who are giving up, you never know.” 

Wallace said since the poetry prize, he has submitted a manuscript of poems into a competition and is editing one of children’s stories.