The Poetics of Place: John Kinsella and Tracey Ryan

Join us for a seminar with two of Australia’s greatest poets of the Western Australian landscape.

John Kinsella will read from his work, and discuss the relationship of poetry to activism, environmentalism, place and
“landscape.” Tracey Ryan will build upon this illuminating presentation with “Portrait or Landscape: Writing People and Place”, a seminar that examines how writing about people necessarily entails writing about place and vice-versa in both poetry and fiction.

Activist and anarchist John Kinsella is one of the best poets of the Australian landscape, with more than thirty books of poetry and prose to his name. Kinsella’s most recent books of poetry are Firebreaks (2016) and Drowning in Wheat: Selected Poems (2016). In June 2016, Five Islands Press will publish three volumes of his Graphology Poems, written over the last twenty years. He has published books in most genres, as well as in a few cross-genres. His latest volume of short stories is Crow’s Breath (2015). He is a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge University, and Professor of
Literature and Sustainability at Curtin University, Western Australia.

Tracy Ryan is a Western Australian writer who has also lived for extensive periods overseas, in the United Kingdom, USA and Ireland. She has published four novels, most recently Claustrophobia (2014) and eight collections of poetry, the latest of which is Hoard (2015). Her numerous awards include The Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards for Poetry for The Argument (2011) and The Willing Eye (2000), the Trudie Graham Award for Memoir (2007) and the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize (2009).