Mark O'Connor Mark O'Connor i(A2440 works by) (a.k.a. Mark Kevin O'Connor)
Born: Established: 1945 Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Male
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BiographyHistory

Mark O'Connor was born and educated in Melbourne, graduating from the University of Melbourne in 1965 with first-class honours in English and Classics. After teaching English at the University of Western Australia and the Australian National University, he took up writing full-time, winning several awards for his poetry in the early 1970s. He has collected many prizes since, including the FAW John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (1981) and the Grace Perry Prize (1988). In the late 1970s O'Connor travelled in Europe on a Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship. Soon after returning to Australia, he took up an appointment as writer-in-residence at James Cook University in North Queensland, the first of many similar appointments at various institutions. In 1988 he was the Museum of Victoria's Thomas Ramsay Science and Humanities Scholar.

O'Connor is one of Australia's best-known environmental poets. His first book of poetry was inspired by the Great Barrier Reef and he was later commissioned to write poetry about the high country for the New South Wales National Parks Service. O'Connor has received numerous grants and fellowships to support his writing, including a two-year Australia Council grant to serve as Sydney's 'Olympic Poet' and continue writing poetry about regional Australia. In 1998 O'Connor published This Tired Brown Land in which he argues that 'discussion of population and immigration issues has been stifled by ideology and vested interests' (Australianpoet.com website). Mark O'Connor continues to reside in Canberra and travels widely, reading his poetry and delivering lectures.

Most Referenced Works

Personal Awards

2024 recipient Order of Australia Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM)
For service to literature as a poet and educator.
1993 winner ACT Literary Award to work on poems about natural or constructed environments of the ACT.
1992 runner-up ACT Literary Award

Awards for Works

The Meaning of Mountains Ski Eclogue i ""Clouds wisping like scarves around your ears,", 1996 single work poetry
— Appears in: Tilting at Snowgums : Australia's High Country in Poetry and Photos 1996; (p. 64-67) The New World Tattoo : The 1996 Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 1996; (p. 93-97) The Olive Tree : Collected Poems 1972-2000 2000; (p. 211-213)
1996 commended The Newcastle Poetry Prize
y separately published work icon The Great Forest : Poetry Sydney : Hale and Iremonger , 1989 Z431511 1989 selected work poetry
1987 commended National Library Poetry Competition
1990 highly commended FAW C J Dennis Literary Award for Natural History

Known archival holdings

Albinski 170
National Library of Australia (ACT)
University of New South Wales Australian Defence Force Academy Australian Defence Force Academy Library (ACT)
Powerhouse Museum Research Library (NSW)
Last amended 12 Feb 2015 16:03:24
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