Jena Woodhouse
Career. Born Jennifer May Spurway, in Rockhampton in 1949, Woodhouse is a graduate of the University of Queensland obtaining a B.A.Hons in Russian Language and Literature. Later Woodhouse completed an M.A. in Creative Writing at Queensland University of Technology. AustLit lists 562 published works by Woodhouse that include the domestic fiction ‘Farming Ghosts’ (2009), and the short story collection ‘Dreams of Flight’ (2014). Woodhouse’s published poetry collections include 'Eros in Landscape' (1989), 'Passenger on a Ferry' (1994) and 'Green Dance: Tamborine Mountain Poems' (2018). Woodhouse’s poetry has been recognised both in Australia and internationally. Amongst Woodhouse ’s awards is a High Commendation for ‘The Termitary’ in the 2007 Fellowship of Australian Writers Tom Collins Poetry Prize (Western Australia) and second place for ‘Galahs near Booranga’ in the 2017 Henry Kendall Poetry Award (Victoria). Woodhouse has been short-listed three times for the Montreal International Poetry Prize for ‘A Bird and the River ‘ (2013), ‘Evening Stroll by the Canal’ (2015), and more recently for ‘Lament for a Daughter’ (2020). Woodhouse’s poems have also been set to music. Woodhouse’s poem sequence 'The River’ formed the basis of Betty Beath’s song cycle ‘River Songs’ (1991) for  soprano and her poems 'Turquoise Lullaby', ' Every Shadow‘ and 'When Evie Dances’ (2018) forms the text for Beath’s song cycle 'Evie Dances’ for mezzo-soprano. Woodhouse’s poem 'The She Wolf' is the text of one of five songs in Beath’s song cycle ’Points in a Journey’ (1987) for soprano.