Acclaimed poet Fay Zwicky dies in Perth at 83

The internationally acclaimed poet Fay Zwicky has died in Perth aged 83.

Internationally acclaimed poet Fay Zwicky, whose breakthrough work Kaddish describes her life as a secular Jew, has died in Perth aged 83.

Her 700-page book The ­Collected Poems of Fay Zwicky was launched on Saturday by UWA Press. UWA Press director Terri-ann White said Zwicky had a powerful reputation.

“There’s great aesthetic to the language in her work but there is also this very distinctive voice that drives everything that she’s written,” she said.

Born in Melbourne in 1933, Zwicky was a contemporary of Dorothy Hewitt at the University of WA. As a lecturer of literature, her students included poets John Kinsella and Paul Hetherington and novelist Gail Jones.

The Collected Poems of Fay Zwicky.

“She was very robust and she spoke her mind but always in a very artful manner,” Professor White said.

She is survived by daughter Anna, who lives in Britain, and son Karl, an Australian film ­director and screenwriter who produced the current ABC series Janet King.