Robert Harris: Contents page

Robert Harris (1951–93) was born in Melbourne and spent much of his adult life in Sydney. His first book was Localities (1973). He won the Harri Jones prize in 1975. Harris worked as an editor for New Poetry magazine during the 1970s and in the 1980s worked with Barrett Reid on Overland. He overcame a poor education and a working life of manual labour to become a highly regarded poet. His work has a deeply spiritual tone. He suffered a heart attack and died in Sydney, aged forty-one, in 1993, without seeing his book Jane, Interlinear and Other Poems win the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry.