The name Anne Elder (1918-1976) endures because of the poetry prize awarded annually in her name over the past forty years. However, little is known about Elder herself despite her many achievements, firstly as a soloist with the Borovansky Ballet, the forerunner of the Australian Ballet, and later as a poet. This lack of recognition, so typical for women of her generation, is set to be rectified by the publication of The Heart’s Ground: A Life of Anne Elder by her niece Julia Hamer.

Elder was talented in whatever field of the arts she turned to: dance, writing, drawing, and music. She was a fascinating character, a brilliant talker, with an unusual sense of humour, keen imagination, a person who soaked up the details of experience, an iconoclastic thinker, and capable of great tenderness. She was also a person of contradictions, capable of lashing out when angry, sensitive to criticism, her individualism sitting alongside some conservative opinions.

The name Anne Elder (1918-1976) endures because of the poetry prize awarded annually in her name over the past forty years. However, little is known about Elder herself despite her many achievements, firstly as a soloist with the Borovansky Ballet, the forerunner of the Australian Ballet, and later as a poet.

One of the reasons for Elder’s neglect, according to fellow poet and friend Graham Rowlands, was that nearly all of the poems that would subsequently be published were written in one short burst, from 1967 to 1971, after which her deteriorating health had made writing difficult.

Elder’s first collection of poetry, For the Record, was published by Hawthorn Press in 1972 and the second collection, Crazy Woman and Other Poems, was published by Angus & Robertson in 1976, not long after her death at the age of 58. It was highly commended in the National Book Council awards in 1977. Her poems were also published in a wide range of magazines and journals, including Meanjin, Overland, Southerly and Westerly, and newspapers such as The Age and The Australian.