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US poet Paul Kane has some good news for Australian poetry.
"It's going through a kind of renaissance, it's a very lively period, there are lots of young and interesting poets," he told AAP from New York.
The author and editor of more than 20 books has been studying verse from down under for most of his life, and has just been recognised with the Order of Australia for services to the country's literature.
The interest that became a lifelong pursuit began around 1979 with a visit to Melbourne, where his late wife grew up, when he found himself haunting the city's bookshops.
He has since visited Australia more than 60 times, becoming artistic director of the Mildura Writers Festival, poetry editor of the literary journal Antipodes, and even building a house in Victoria's Goldfields region.
He was a founding member of the American Association of Australasian Literary Studies in the 1980s, and since 2013 he has edited the Braziller Series of Australian Poets, which introduces writers such as Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Judith Beveridge and Philip Hodgins to a wider audience.
So if it's an invigorating period for poetry in Australia, Kane himself can perhaps take some of the credit.
He said while the US valorises its poets to an extent not seen here, Australian poetry has a broader cultural influence than many realise.
"Australia does respect its poets. It has a relationship to poetry that's very deep," he said.
He points out that a US leader would never have turned to a poet to write a constitutional preamble, as John Howard did with Les Murray before the 1999 referendum.
"It would be unthinkable in the US," he said.
Kane said he is surprised and deeply honoured by the recognition, and hopes to return to Australia in January.
"Literature and the visual arts in Australia are world class and it's just a joy for me to be connected with that," he said.
