# 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.

## 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 (and 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.