Cirrus@Austlit

John Tranter was born in Cooma, New South Wales, but moved with his family to Moruya, on the south coast of New South Wales, when he was four. After attending local schools and working in his father's soft drink factory, Tranter moved to Sydney in 1961 and began an architecture degree at the University of Sydney. He abandoned his studies a year later, but returned to complete a BA in 1970 after travelling through Europe and Asia in the late 1960s.

In the 1970s, Tranter began working as an editor for various publishers, and editor and producer for the ABC and SBS in the '80s. He also taught in several universities and travelled widely, reading poetry and lecturing on Australian literature.

Tranter was well known as a poet. His first poetry collection—Parallax and Other Poems—was published in 1970, as an issue of Poetry Australia. Other works, such as Under Berlin (1988), and Urban Myths (2006), won awards, and his works have appeared in numerous national and international journals and anthologies. 

In 1997, Tranter founded the the poetry magazine Jacket.

(Source: OX; HDeB; DLB; Pradeep, Trikha, 'An Interview with John Tranter', Antipodes 18.1 (June 2004): 31-35; Poetry Library).