Life

This is not intended as a cv, but is rather a list of key events and places, so that readers are able to date Martin’s poetry.

1947

12 November, born Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, the first child of writers Charmian Clift and George Johnston.

1947-1951      

The family lives in a flat in Bondi.

1949

3 February, Shane is born.

1951

The family travels on the Orcades to England. Arrives March.

1951-1954      

The family lives in a company flat near Kensington Gardens.

George Johnston is head of the London office of Associated Newspaper Services and Charmian is doing the day shift on the couple’s latest collaborative novel.

Martin and Shane attend a Montessori kindergarten; both children can read and write by the time they arrive there.

1954

December: the family moves to the remote and poverty-stricken island of Kalymnos in the Dodecanese, where George writes The Sponge Divers and Charmian writes her first travel memoir, Mermaid Singing (which includes a number of descriptions of Martin).

Martin and Shane are enrolled at the local primary school.

Martin develops a passion for ballads about the klefts, the brigand heroes of the War of Independence.

1955

August: the family moves to the island of Hydra, much closer to Athens and the tourist trail.

Martin and Shane are enrolled at the local school.                  

1956

3 April: Jason is born.

George and Charmian buy ‘the house by the well’ (later known on the island as ‘the Australian house’).

1960

October: George and Charmian do a house-swap with an English family who have a farmhouse in the Cotswolds.

Not having done the English 11-plus exam, Martin is obliged to attend Winchcombe Secondary Modern School, which he described as ‘sheer unadulterated hell’.

1961

April: the family returns to Hydra.

Martin is enrolled in Hydra High School.

1964

Martin with his mother, sister and brother return to Sydney as £10 migrants on the Ellenis, in the wake of George Johnston who had come earlier for the launch of My Brother Jack.

Martin is enrolled at North Sydney Boys High, a selective school near the family’s rented Mosman home.

1965

Martin does the Leaving Certificate at North Sydney Boys High and matriculates to Sydney University.

1966

Arts I, Sydney University.

1967

Arts II, Sydney University, including English Honours.

Wins Combined Universities Poetry Prize.

November: the family moves into their new home, 112 Raglan St Mosman.

When the Junta seizes power, Martin takes part in the campaigns of the Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in Greece, of which his mother is one of the Vice Presidents.

1968

Drops out of university to take up a cadetship at the Sydney Morning Herald. Is assigned to police rounds.

Lives alone in a flat in Kings Cross.

Later shifts over to the Sun Herald, where he writes Midget Farrelly’s surfing column and ‘Dog of the Week’.

Begins writing book reviews for the Sydney Morning Herald.

Is fined $30 on charges arising from an anti-Vietnam demonstration.

1969

July, Charmian Clift commits suicide.

Martin writes and presents a number of ABC radio features, including ‘Songs of the Eagle’ (Greek folk songs) and programs on Greek writers Seferis, Vassilikos and Kazantzakis.

1970

Lives with Terry Larsen and others in Forest Lodge.

Illustrates The World Of Charmian Clift, edited by George Johnston, Ure Smith, Sydney.

July: George Johnston dies from his long-term lung disease.

Martin exchanges journalism for the life of a poet and freelance writer.

September: ‘Letter to Sylvia Plath’ is published in the Union Recorder; it is the winner of that magazine’s poetry competition.

October: ‘The Sea-Cucumber’ is published in Poetry Magazine.

1971

Publishes shadowmass, Sydney University Arts Society Publications.

April: ‘The Blood Aquarium’ is published in New Poetry.

Is fined $50 on charges arising from an anti-Vietnam demonstration.

August: joins editorial board of New Poetry (formerly Poetry Magazine).

1972

Lives with Julie House in a flat above an op shop on Enmore Road, Enmore.

In December moves in with Nadia Wheatley at 9 Gilpin Street, Camperdown.

1973

Publishes Ithaka, Modern Greek Poetry in Translation, Island Press.

January: plays in Australian Open chess competition, Melbourne.

July: awarded one year $5000 Young Writer’s Fellowship by the Literature Board of the Australia Council, payment to commence 1974.

1974

With the support of the Literature Board grant, works on the novel Cicada Gambit.

Fall of the Junta in Greece opens the way for Martin to return.

1975 

Cicada Gambit is rejected, on the grounds that it is too experimental.

December: in the wake of the Dismissal of the Whitlam Government, travels to Greece with Nadia Wheatley, with the intention of living and writing there for some time.

1976 

Lives initially in the hinterland of Chania, Crete, where John Forbes comes to stay.

After Easter moves to Paralion Astros, on the Gulf of Argos. Lives initially in a cottage, but by June has moved up the hill to a villa (lent by an arts patron).

Summer: two months travelling through northern Greece. Visits Volos, Makrinitsa and Mount Pelion, Meteora, Yannina, Metsovo, Kavala, Kastoria, Pella, Thessaloniki, Veria. These places would appear in the long poem ‘To the Innate Island’, which Martin starts at this time.

Autumn: returns to Paralion Astros. Works on poem sequences ‘Microclimatology’ and ‘To the Innate island’.

1977

January: visits Sparta, Mystra, and Monemvasia (which also appear in ‘To the Innate Island’).  

March: moves with Nadia from Paralion Astros to the town of Chania in north-west Crete, where they rent a two room flat in a derelict 16th century Venetian mansion.

May: visits Phaistos, Lassithi.

August: moves from Greece to London, in the futile hope of finding English publishers for his poems. Rents a flat at 81 Broxash Rd, Clapham South.

1978 

The Sea-Cucumber published by University of Queensland Press.

Easter: A literary pilgrimage to Ireland. Martin and Nadia hitchhike from Dublin to Sligo (Lake Innisfree), then Thoor Ballylee.

Summer:  Martin and Nadia return to Greece, for a final holiday. Visit Athens, the Mani (Peloponnese), Hydra (for one night). Crete (including Chania), Santorini, Samos, Naxos.

September: Martin returns to Australia via a brief visit to Julie House in Thailand.

1979 

‘To the Innate Island’ is rejected by Angus & Robertson on advice of readers Les Murray and Vivian Smith.

Around April: meets Roseanne Bonney. Shortly afterwards moves into her house at Thomson Street Darlinghurst, where Roseanne’s fifteen-year-old daughter Vivienne is also living.

May: is awarded a $3000 Special Purpose grant by the Literature Board of the Australia Council to write a memoir of his parents.

1979-80          

November to March: as a research trip for the memoir, travels to Greece and England, initially with Roseanne and later alone.

Visits Athens, Hydra, London, Amsterdam, back alone to Athens, where a bank strike leaves him stranded for a couple of months with no money.

1980               

Puts together the sonnet sequence ‘Duende in Darlinghurst’.

June: Begins work at the fledgling Special Broadcasting Service as a Greek subtitler. Soon also became a sub-editor.

Will remain at SBS (albeit as a casual employee) for the next nine years.                         

1982               

October: marries Roseanne Bonney. Spends a month in Italy.

1983               

Cicada Gambit is published by Hale & Iremonger, Sydney.

1984               

The Typewriter Considered as a Bee-Trap is published by Hale & Iremonger, Sydney. The bulk of this volume, including the long poem ‘To the Innate Island’, was written in Greece 1976-8.

1986               

March-April: Martin spends six weeks in Crete, Athens, England.

1987               

Travels in Europe with Roseanne and Vivienne Bonney and Vivienne’s partner, Christopher Latham.

1988               

Takes extended leave from SBS, and spends the year in Europe with Roseanne. Over this time he writes a number of poems, and works on a novel about General Makriyannis (a hero from the Greek War of Independence).

Early: in Podere Trove, Tuscany, and generally travelling in northern Italy, including Venice during the Biennale.

August: Greece, Lesbos.

November: visits Berlin.

December: returns to Greece. Stays on Sifnos.

1989               

January: returns to Australia.

February: moves alone to a flat in Glebe Point Road, Glebe. 

1990      

February: takes sick leave from SBS.

February: Twelve poems (produced in Italy in 1988) are published in Scripsi; also a long review of Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

April: resigns from SBS.

16 June: Bloomsday. Collapses at Toxteth Hotel, Glebe.

Taken to Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, he is diagnosed with delirium tremens and pneumonia.

Subsequently has a heart attack in hospital and goes into ICU.

21 June: dies in Royal Prince Alfred Hospital.