23 Feb 2021
Daniel Swain was a fresh-faced boy when he arrived at SHHS. I have memories of him in my Visual Arts classroom, politely and co-operatively carrying out whatever was required of him.
He concurs … ”You’re right to remember that I was not a particularly able Visual Arts student but I did leave Smith’s Hill with a love of visual and performing arts”.
He also has fond memories of participating in Rock Eisteddfod which brought hundreds of students with broad skills and interests together in a creative exercise that was a whole lot of extra-curricular fun.
Daniel quickly came to prominence across the humanities, namely through his super power of public speaking and debating.
“For the [2008] HSC I studied English (4 units), Modern History, History Extension, Society and Culture, Drama and a now defunct subject called Comparative Literature. I also did Biology and Economics in year 11. I loved all my subjects but, as you can see from my HSC choices, I was drawn towards literature and history.”
Daniel, a standout public speaker at high school, won the National Plain English-Speaking Award in 2007 and the Rostrum Voice of Youth Award in 2008, and was a member of the Australian Schools Debating Team. While at Sydney University he was a best speaker and champion at the Australian and Australasian University Debating Championships, and was a Grand Finalist at the World Debating Championships.
“I started debating and public speaking at Smith’s Hill. Doyley (HSIE teacher Kerrie Doyle) was our passionate, wonderful coach and champion. Debating and public speaking subsequently took me around the world during high school and university. I was fortunate to travel to places like Botswana, Malaysia, Japan, Thailand, Korea, Turkey, the USA, the UK, Germany and the UAE.
I found training young debaters particularly rewarding, and after university I was lucky enough to be the coach of the Australian and UAE schools debating teams at the World Schools Debating Championships.”
Daniel is in his second year of a PhD in English and Gender Studies at the prestigious Yale University in the U.S.A. His research focusses on gender, race and sexuality in 20th and 21st century American poetry (see the link to his university bio below).
“When the pandemic started, Yale moved its classes online and I decided to head home. I’ve been studying remotely ever since. Getting up at 3am for a seminar isn’t easy, but I’m back in Wollongong for the first time since high school, and am grateful for the opportunity to live by the beach, and be close to friends and family.”
For those SHHS students working towards the HSC, the following may make you squirm…
”At this stage of my PhD, I’m just paid to read poems, which is pretty much my dream. Later this year, I start teaching at Yale after I sit my so-called qualifying exams (a viva voce on around 200 texts including journal articles, with two translation exams in French and German. I am terribly monolingual and wish I’d taken more LOTE classes at SHHS. I loved studying languages—if only I could have fitted them into my timetable. My French and German are very much a work in progress.”
Daniel is in his element supervised by a team of faculty mentors and, while not directly associated with her, the 2020 Nobel Prize for Literature, Louise Glück is listed among Yale’s adjunct professors – great company indeed.
As a poet, Daniel says he “writes mostly about my friends and the stories they tell me. But this means, in the end, I’m writing about a whole range of topics; class, race, queerness, politics, ethics, art, family, etc.”
In his research, Daniel is also interested in the relationship between poetry and visual art, which highlights their connections as very close in form. I always liked to state to my students that art is like a visual metaphor – that the visual language is another way of speaking on the same level as poetry. Daniel responded to that idea…
“Contemporary art and poetry share so much: the centrality of metaphor, the desire to take people out of an ordinary way of looking/thinking about language. Writing about one without the other seems impossible to me. In almost all of my papers, I end up drawing a work of visual art. I am currently researching Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler (two women abstract expressionists of the early 20thC), and many of the poets that I love (like Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery) were art writers or curators.”
Daniel had the opportunity to see great art and performance while living in New York State... “When I was in the US before COVID, I tried to visit the galleries and art museums in New York at least every other week. It’s about 90 minutes from New Haven, not dissimilar to getting the train from Wollongong to Sydney. Wandering around galleries is a nice break from reading, and sometimes the wandering is as important as the art.”
The Museum of Modern Art in New York is a magnet for those interested in modern art … “This was an exhibition I loved at MOMA” https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/5061
Daniel’s memories of SHHS are certainly fond and reiterate what so many have said about the terrific culture that the school fosters… “Smith’s Hill is a very special school. It offers every opportunity for academic success, but also emphasises the importance of citizenship, social awareness, emotional development and creativity. During university I worked as a debating coach in an (unnamed!) selective school in Sydney and the atmosphere/tone was so different: the students were chronically anxious and the teaching was narrowly focused on examination results. I owe so much to my wonderful teachers at SHHS.”
The current high school generation may appreciate Daniel’s words of encouragement…
“I loathe to give current high schoolers any advice, especially since the loving tolerance and progressivism of your generation is historically unmatched. Your perseverance during the pandemic has been so impressive. The limited wisdom I can offer is: always leave space in your life for art; express gratitude to your teachers and parents; and keep up your generation’s commitment to justice, ecological sustainability and diversity.”
A photograph included here shows Daniel reading poetry at Sappho’s Bookshop in Glebe, Sydney.
