Jean Kent (poet)
Jean Kent is an Australian poet.
Education
Jean Kent was educated at the Glennie Memorial School in Toowoomba and graduated from University of Queensland with Bachelor of Arts majoring in psychology. She has worked in vocational guidance, educational guidance of disabled children, counselling of students and staff in TAFE colleges and, most recently, teaching creative writing. Jean now lives on Lake Macquarie, which is a feature in her verse, as well the memories and experiences formed in youth and childhood in South East Queensland.Literary career
Jean Kent has published stories in many of Australia's quality literary magazines such as Overland, Westerly, Outrider, Imago, Australian Short Stories and Meanjin as well as in the American-based Antiopodes. She has published ten poetry collections. Travelling with the Wrong Phrasebooks included poems about her travels in Paris and Lithuania. The Hour of Silvered Mullet contemplates her rural past and lakeside present and was published by Pitt Street Poetry in 2015. As was her latest Paris Light a personal Plan de Paris featuring paintings by her husband Martin Kent. Jean Kent has received several writing grants from the Australia Council, including Overseas Residencies in Paris in 1994 and 2011.Critical reaction
Martin Duwell writing in Australian Poetry Review described Travelling with the Wrong Phrasebooks as "an immensely likable collection, so likable that readers may miss some of its sophistication, thinking it no more than a set of poems about travels in France and Lithuania. It is actually a good deal more than that."Awards
- Newcastle Poetry Prize, Local Award
- Newcastle Poetry Prize, Local Award
- Dorothy Porter Prize
- Newcastle Poetry Prize, Local Award
- Somerset Poetry Prize
- Josephine Ulrick National Poetry Prize
- Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry
- Newcastle Poetry Prize, 2nd prize
- the Association for the Study of Australian Literature's Mary Gilmore Award
- FAW Anne Elder Poetry Award
- Henry Kendall Poetry Competition
- the National Library Poetry Competition
Works
Verandahs, Practising Breathing, The Satin Bowerbird The Spaghetti Maker, a chapbook of selected poems, was published by Picaro Press in 2002Travelling with the Wrong Phrasebooks The Language of Light The Hour of Silvered Mullet Paris in my pocket The Shadow Box- ''Paris Light a personal Plan de Paris''