Dennis Haskell

Dennis Haskell is an Australian poet, critic and academic. He has authored nine collections of poetry, with his most recent works being And Yet… and Ahead of Us. Additionally, Haskell has contributed to literary scholarship, publishing fourteen volumes of literary criticism and literary essays.

Dennis Haskell
Born	Dennis Haskell Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Occupation	Emeritus Professor/Senior Honorary Research Fellow
Education	PhD in English Literature
Alma mater	University of Sydney
Years active	1977-
Notable awards	ASAL (Association for the Study of Australian Literature): A.A. Phillips Award, 2011

Early life and education

Haskell was born into a working-class family in the western suburbs of Sydney; his father was a carpenter and his mother a florist. He attended primary schools in Croydon, Auburn West, and Berala, before going on to Homebush Boys High School. He completed a Commerce degree at the University of New South Wales and worked as an accountant or lecturer in business studies for almost a decade, in Sydney and London. He travelled and lived in Europe and North America for two years from late-1970, marrying in London in 1972. He and his wife, Rhonda, who was also from Sydney, returned to the city in late-1972.

Haskell began an Arts degree at University of Sydney in 1973, studying English and Philosophy; during this time, he lectured and tutored in Commerce at UNSW. He broke with accounting when he became a Tutor in English at Sydney University in 1977, completing his PhD (on W B Yeats) in English in 1980 (awarded in 1981). He was later Emeritus Professor/Senior Honorary Research Fellow in the School of English and Cultural Studies at the University of Western Australia (UWA).

Academic career

He moved to Perth to take up a lectureship at University of Western Australia in 1984. He eventually became a Professor of English and Cultural Studies at UWA and held many committee and management positions, including Deputy Dean of the Arts Faculty and Chair of Academic Board. On his retirement, a symposium on Creative Writing and its Contexts was convened by the Westerly Centre, UWA and the Association for the Study of Australian Literature in his honor.

Haskell's research interests include Twentieth Century and Contemporary Australian Literature, Poetry from the Medieval period to the present, Creative Writing, South-East Asian Writing in English, Literary Modernism (1890-1939), and Postcolonial literature.

Professional roles

In 2009, he was invited by the Federal Minister for the Arts to chair the Literature Board of the Australia Council for the Arts for three years, which also meant becoming a Board member of the Australia Council. He is a past Director of Australian Poetry Ltd and is currently Secretary of the Perth PEN Centre.

Haskell has regularly delivered papers at academic conferences and to community groups, and he has given many invited readings of his own poetry, at various venues in many locations, including Armidale, Brisbane, Cairns, Canberra, Perth, Sydney, Townsville, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Singapore, Spain, Thailand, The Philippines, and the USA.

He has been a visiting professor at universities in England (Cambridge University), France, Germany, Hong Kong, The Philippines (University of The Philippines), Singapore, Thailand, and the USA (Georgetown University).

Editorial and literary contributions

Haskell co-edited the literary magazine Westerly from 1985 to 2009, and was later (aand as of 2020) director of the Westerly Centre at UWA. He was chair of the Australia Council's Literature Board from 2009 to 2011.

Apart from writing his own poetry, Haskell has produced a number of critical studies of the works of Australian poets such as Bruce Dawe and Kenneth Slessor.

Awards

• 2003: shortlisted, New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards — Gleebooks Prize for Critical Writing, for *Attuned to Alien Moonlight: The Poetry of Bruce Dawe*
• 2006: winner, Western Australian Premier's Book Awards — Poetry for *All the Time in the World*
• He also won the Western Australia Premier’s Prize for Poetry and the A A Phillips Prize for distinguished contributions to Australian literature from the Association for the Study of Australian Literature. He was also awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Western Australia. In 2015, Haskell was made a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to literature, particularly poetry, education, and intercultural understanding.

Bibliography

Poetry collections

• Listening at Night (1984)
• A Touch of Ginger with Fay Zwicky, a chapbook (1992)
• Abracadabra (1993)
• The Ghost Names Sing: Poems (1997)
• Samuel Johnson in Marrickville: Selected Poems (UK, 2001)
• All the Time in the World (UK, 2006)
• Acts of Defiance: New and Selected Poems (UK, 2010)
• What Are You Doing Here? Selected Poems (The Philippines, 2015)
• Ahead of Us (2016)
• And Yet… (2020)
• Who Would Know? (2024)

Critical studies

• John Keats (1991)
• Australian Poetic Satire (1995)
• Attuned to Alien Moonlight: The Poetry of Bruce Dawe (2002)

Edited

• Wordhord: A Critical Selection of Contemporary Western Australian Poetry edited with Hilary Fraser (1989)
• Kenneth Slessor: Poetry, Essays, War Despatches, War Diaries, Journalism, Autobiographical Material and Letters (1991)
• Whose Place?: A Study of Sally Morgan's 'My Place' edited with Delys Bird (1992)
• Myths, Heroes and Anti-Heroes: Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region edited with Bruce Bennett (1992)
• Westerly Looks to Asia: A Selection from Westerly 1956-1992 with Bruce Bennett, Susan Miller, and, Peter Cowan (1993)
• Kenneth Slessor: Collected Poems edited with Geoffrey Dutton (1994)
• Tilting at Matilda: Literature, Aborigines, Women and the Church in Contemporary Australia (1994)
• Sightings: poems for International PEN 62nd World Congress edited with John Kinsella (1995)
• Interactions: Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region edited with Ron Shapiro (2000)
• Beyond Good And Evil? Essays on the Literature and Culture of the Asia-Pacific Region edited with Megan McKinlay and Pamina Rich (2005)
• Poems 2013: Volume of the Australian Poetry Members Anthology edited with Jessica Friedman and Chris Wallace-Crabb

Personal life

Haskell and Rhonda had two sons. Rhonda was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in June 2006 and Haskell took early retirement in July 2011; she died in February 2012. His book of poetry, *Ahead of Us* (2016), describes the cancer experience. His next collection, *And Yet…* (2020), includes poems that describe his subsequent experience of Rhonda’s death.