Martin Harrison Martin Harrison i(A16951 works by)
Born: Established: 1949 Yorkshire,
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England,
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United Kingdom (UK),
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Western Europe, Europe,
; Died: Ceased: 6 Sep 2014
Gender: Male
Arrived in Australia: 1978
Heritage: English
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BiographyHistory

Born in the UK, Harrison started publishing poems in the mid-70s and his work was associated with the New English poets. In 1978 he settled in Sydney but lived at various times in London, Rome, Auckland and Barcelona, and in the wine-growing and orchard area of New South Wales.

Harrison was an ABC radio producer, particularly interested in soundwork and innovative musics. From 1982 to 1985 he produced the ABC's 'Books and Writing' program. Apart from having his own poetry published in several collections and in literary journals, Harrison wrote about and reviewed poetry, and he was poetry reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald from 1979 to 1981. He taught sound composition, theory of sound, and writing at Sydney's University of Technology.

Harrison died suddenly of a heart attack in September 2014.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2007 Australia Council Grants, Awards and Fellowships Keesing Studio Writer's Residency For a six month residency at the Keesing Studio, Paris, France, between 1 August 2008 and 31 January 2009.

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Happiness Crawley : UWA Publishing , 2015 8587102 2015 selected work poetry

'Martin Harrison (1949-2014) prepared and delivered this final manuscript at the end of a prolific creative life. With the vulnerability of a lover, the poet peels back one cover of truth after another; reckless for the evidence of the senses, he sifts light, sound, and smell. Poems like the skin of a world: breathing, walking, touching. Martin Harrison's culminating poetic achievement is a crossing over - stylistically, thematically, emotionally. Mapping the tragic chiasmus of love and death, it finally asserts the transcendent power of poetry to bear witness, to join us in a greater communion. Cosmopolitan and local, these triumphs of a 'late style' remind us what poetry is when its mastery allows the irony of existence to walk naked and to exult. ' (Publication summary)

2016 highly commended Victorian Premier's Literary Awards Prize for Poetry
y separately published work icon Wild Bees : New and Selected Poems Crawley : University of Western Australia , 2008 Z1512914 2008 selected work poetry

'Martin Harrison has been described as a writer whose poetry is a meeting place between the immensity, and intensity, of the Australian environment and the hi-tech world of everyday life. Collected here is the poet's own re-casting of his work since the early 1990s, setting accomplished poems from earlier books in the company of recent poems and prose poems. Martin Harrison's Wild Bees — New and Selected Poems marks a place of arrival and a new departure.' (Publication summary)

2010 shortlisted Festival Awards for Literature (SA) Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature South Australian Literary Awards John Bray Award for Poetry
Last amended 22 Sep 2014 21:07:35
Influence on:
Witnessed Chloë Callistemon , 2015 single work poetry
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