Skryznecki Essay

Peter Skryznecki

Background & Family

Peter Skryznecki was born in Germany in 1945. He is of Polish and Ukrainian decent. Peter was an only child. He and his parents immigrated to Australia in 1949. They lived in two migrant centres when they first arrive in Australia, one in Bathurst and the other was the Parkes Migrant Centre. After the migrant centres, they moved to a town called Regents Park. At this time his father, Feliks Skryznecki, works as a labourer and his mother, Kornelia, was a domestic for families around where they lived.

Education

His first school was at a catholic school, Saint Peter Chanel’s. In 1956, he started attending St. Patrick’s College in Strathfield. He completed a leaving certificate in 1963.

He then started university in 1964 at Sydney University but he was unsuccessful there. He then attended Sydney Teacher’s College and completed a Primary Teacher Training Course in 1965-66. He then began a teaching career at schools and universities in 1967.

Life as a Poet

Peter Skryznecki first started writing poetry in 1964 while he was attending Sydney University. One of the professors there then encouraged him to continue writing. He had his first poems published in Poetry Magazine in ’67 and also ’68. He has been included in a poetry anthology, Weekend Australia magazine, a broadcast on ABC and has been published in many other books. Skryznecki had formed a friendship with Roland Robinson. Robinson published Skryznecki’s first book in 1970. He wrote a series of poems which he named the Immigrant Chronicles which consisted of 48 poems. He has written 2 novels, 1 memoir, 2 short stories and of course various poems. He has also been awarded numerous awards including the Captain Cook Bicentenary Poetry Prize and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry.

Mikaela West

10Eng1