Canadian poet, editor/publisher, teacher and reviewer, Jacqueline Turner was the inaugural Poet in Residence at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, Brisbane, Queensland for three moths in 2005.
On the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts website Turner spoke of her role as Poet in Residence:
'I see my role here as a Canadian poet in residence to build and support that enthusiasm for poetry, to make connections between Queensland and British Columbia .... Matt Foley used the word "fusion" during a recent reading of a Judith Wright poem and that seems like the right word to describe my mandate here because I like the idea of collaboration, of working together to create something that merges differing ideas and interest....
If you visit my office, you'll see that I actually have Judith Wright's desk. It makes for a powerful, tangible connection between our differing literary and political moments. It's a big desk to sit at: one of my projects is to write a response to her poem At Cooloola which leaves me with big words to fill.'
While resident, Turner wrote At Shuswap, a response to Judith Wright's At Cooloola, worked on two photo/poetic installations based on her travels around Queensland, and guest-edited an issue of Stylus (no.19, October 2005). Her poem 'A Brisbane Poem' was published on the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts website.
