Born in Scheveningen, the Netherlands in 1948, Cornelis Vleeskens was an Australian poet, writing in both English and Dutch. He studied for a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in English at the University of Sydney and the University of Queensland. He has travelled widely in South-East Asia, Hong Kong and Japan and has worked mainly as a psychiatric and geriatric nurse. He began writing in English, made some attempts to write in Dutch between 1979 and 1984 and then began writing predominantly in Dutch in 1987. His work has been read on Radio 5UV in the late 1970s, Radio 4ZZZ in 1976, Radio 2SER in 1981, Radio 3CR from 1982, Radio 3RRR in 1985 and 1989, Radio 3RPP in 1989, Radio 3ZZZ since 1989 and Radio 2EA in 1990. He has read on many occasions, including at Sydney University; the University of Queensland and Kedron College of Advanced Education; the Warana Festival; Cafe L'Absurd (Balmain); Exiles Bookshop (Darlinghurst); Cornstalk Bookshop (Glebe); Monsalvat Poetry Festival; La Mama Poetica; Rochester Castle Hotel (Melbourne); Fringe Festivals (Melbourne); Club Foote (Adelaide) and on the 1990 MAD (Melbourne Adelaide Darwin) Poets Tour on the Ghan Train in 1990. The University of Queensland Press has published a number of monographs of selected poems by Vleeskens, including The Day the River and Orange Blizzard.