Photo © Giles Hugo

Poems on this web site

• THE PARADE
• AEROPELICAN - Sydney/Newcastle
• NIGHTSCENE, Northern Rivers

Interviews with Anthony Lawrence appear in:

• 'Famous Reporter', n.23, June 2001, pp.26-29,31-35, 37-40;
  
• Australian Book Review, n.155, October 1993;
  
• Thylazine

Anthony Lawrence lives in Hobart and is the recipient of a Senior Fellowship from the Australia Council -- one of the most prestigious funding awards a writer can be accorded in Australia.

I'd like to think that a couple of my poems achieve this tricky balance: landscape veined with humanity, flora, fauna, what's imagined and what's experienced. ... I write about nature to define my life. (Anthony Lawrence, in an interview with John Kinsella, in Thylazine.)

Anthony has received a number of Literature Board Grants and has won numerous awards for his poetry, including the inaugural Judith Wright Calanthe Award (Queensland Premier's Poetry Prize), the Harri Jones Memorial Award, the Gwen Harwood Memorial Prize (in 1996), and the Newcastle Poetry Prize in 1997. He recently won the Claudio Alcorso Award, 2003 -- a residency enabling research and writing in Italy. Other awards include:

• Josephine Ulrick National Poetry Prize, 2001: winner for 'The Rain'
• Josephine Ulrick National Poetry Prize, 2001: winner for 'A Sequence of Five Poems'
• Inaugural Judith Wright Calanthe Award, 1999: winner for New and Selected Poems
• NSW Premier's Literary Awards, Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, 1997: winner for 'The Viewfinder'
• Grace Perry Memorial Award, 1988: runner-up for 'Blood Oath'

Born in 1957, Anthony Lawrence left school at 16, working first as a jackeroo and then travelling for several years before returning to New South Wales, becoming a teacher and writer. It was while working as a fisherman in Western Australia that he secured a literary fellowship which enabled him to devote time to writing poetry. Over time, his poems have appeared in numerous Australian and international literary magazines, including Meanjin, Overland, Poetry Australia, LiNQ, Salt and Antipodes (USA).

The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature describes his poetry as "narrative with a strong lyrical vein", and the Austlit database entry for him is extensive:

"His poetry explores many aspects of Australian landscape, capturing the harshness of rural life, but also meditating on the minute and beautiful details of native birds, fish and animals. His verse also examines the poet's childhood and early influences, and reveals a fascination with figurative language and the process of creating a poem."

Currently, a selection of his work is being translated into German.

Books by Anthony Lawrence

• The Sleep of a Learning Man, (Giramondo Publishing Co.) See launch speech by Pete Hay)
• Skinned by Light: Poems 1989-2002
  St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 2002.
  ISBN: 072229806
  121p.
• In the Half Light (novel)
  Sydney, New South Wales: Picador, 2000.
  ISBN: 0330362356
  (Also published by Pan Macmillan, 2001, ISBN: 0330362690 and in England by Picador, 2002, ISBN: 0330485512)
• New and Selected Poems
  (includes 41 new poems published under the sub-title, 'Skinned by Light')
  St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1998.
  ISBN: 0702229806 (pbk.)
  335p.
• The Viewfinder
  St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1996.
  (This collection won the NSW Premier's Literary Awards and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry in 1997.)
• Cold Wires of Rain (Australian Poetry Series series)
  Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1995.
  ISBN: 0140587276 (pbk.)
  80p.
• The Darkwood Aquarium (Australian Poetry Series)
  Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin, 1993.
  ISBN: 0140586938 (pbk.)
  173p.
• Three Days Out of Tidal Town
  Sydney, New South Wales: Hale & Iremonger, 1992.
• Ultramarine: Poems, Anthony Lawrence and John Kinsella
  Applecross, Western Australia: Folio, 1991.
• Dreaming in Stone, Angus & Robertson, 1989.