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Joanne Burns Joanne Burns i(A29085 works by)
Also writes as: 'Ethelred Malley' ; 'Sylvia Malley'
Born: Established: 1945 Sydney, New South Wales, ;
Gender: Female
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BiographyHistory

Joanne Burns graduated in 1966 from the University of Sydney, and became a teacher of English and creative writing in schools and tertiary institutions. Between 1970 and 1972 she lived and worked in London as a teacher.

Burns's first poetry collection Snatch (1972) was published in London by Strange Faeces Press and since then she has published many collections. She was well known for her performances in the early 1970s where her work was performed with a feminist theatre group, the Lean Sisters. Burns travelled in Europe and Asia and in 1985 was a member of the Four Australian Poets reading group that toured in the United States and Canada.

Burns has taught creative writing for many years in schools, tertiary institutions and in the community. She has been a tutor/lecturer in the Five Islands New Poets residential workshops at University of Wollongong (1998-2001). She has published in a number of genres, including poetry, short fictions and dramatic monologues, a number of which have been produced for theatre and by ABC Radio. The title piece from Blowing Bubbles in the 7th Lane has also been produced by ABC Radio National. She has also written a book of children's stories. In 1996, she was the recipient of an Australia Council Writer's fellowship.

Her work has been widely published and she has contributed poetry to many journals, such as Overland, Meanjin, Cordite, Island and Blue Dog. In 2016, her collection Brush won the Kenneth Slessor Award at the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, an award for which she was previously shortlisted for An Illustrated History of Dairies (published 2007, shortlisted 2008).

Most Referenced Works

Awards for Works

y separately published work icon Apparently Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2019 15527564 2019 selected work poetry

'The poems collected in apparently appear like visions, intensely experienced but barely real. Where does a poem come from? Over four sections this question is considered. The first section gathers poems spring-boarding from the clues and solutions to crossword puzzles; the second recounts unsettling dreams in the form of prose poems or microfictions; ‘dial’, the longest section, acknowledges the bewildering sense of daily time and the dizzying spectacle of social and worldly matters contained within. Finally, from a more restful or relaxed vantage, ‘the random couch’ presents a number of drifting poems, written while the poet was lounging on the sofa.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

2020 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
y separately published work icon Brush Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2014 8009653 2014 selected work poetry

The title of Joanne Burns’ new collection brush highlights the reader’s first experience of a poem, its initial electricity; and the way the poem offers a surface of words that proceeds to reveal their possibilities or intentions. The central sequence ‘road’ is an animated display of the fashions of being in contemporary life – these poems are cheeky, playful, mercurial, surreal. Then there is the sequence called ‘bluff’, which excoriates twenty-first century financial culture with bite, hilarity and a sense of the absurd. There is a section devoted to personal memoir, including a five-part poem featuring Bondi beach, and a suite of memory fragments depicting twentieth-century modes of travel. The final group of poems, ‘wooing the owl (or the great sleep forward)’, explores the night, sleep and dreams, with their strange tones and surprising perspectives. There are 80 poems in the collection, most of them short, stressing the compressed pleasure that only poetry can offer. [From the publisher's website]

2016 winner New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
y separately published work icon An Illustrated History of Dairies Artarmon : Giramondo Publishing , 2007 Z1433452 2007 selected work poetry A new collection by Joanne Burns, a poet noted for her laconic satirical style, Its nine sections offer an energetic mix of forms, perceptions, poetic strategies and shifts, which ensure that her subjects are always seen from an unexpected angle. -- from Libraries Australia record.
2008 shortlisted New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
Last amended 1 May 2018 08:55:58
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