On the initiative of H. C. Coombs, he was a Harkness Fellow at Yale University from 1965 to 1967, mixing widely with American writers and developing his poetry in new directions.

In later years he has spent time in Italy, reading and translating Italian verse, including two contrast cantos from Dante.

Reviewers over the years have drawn attention time and again to the energetic mixture of demotic and elevated language which very often marks Wallace-Crabbe's poetry.

This corresponds to his sense that poetry is, residually, a sacred art with its attention divided between ontology and finely-detailed epistemology.

Since his retirement from university teaching he has continued to live in inner Melbourne, adhering to poetry, reading history and playing tennis.

working on the history of Western magic, and on a series of prints, with Kristin Headlam, based upon his long poem mentioned above.