Kate Fagan is an Australian poet, musician and academic.
Education
Fagan attended James Ruse Agricultural High School. She came second in the state in the 1990 New South Wales Higher School Certificate, distinguishing herself in mathematics, modern history, agriculture and English. Initially studying arts/law at university, her academic interests began to focus on literary culture.
She gained her PhD at the
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...
with a doctoral thesis on the poetics of Lyn Hejinian.
Career
Fagan is now a lecturer at the
University of Western Sydney
Western Sydney University, formerly the University of Western Sydney, is an Australian multi-campus university in the Greater Western region of Sydney, Australia. The university in its current form was founded in 1989 as a federated network u ...
in poetry. She is a former editor of ''How2'', a US-based online journal of innovative
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
and poetics. She is also a songwriter and performer whose album ''Diamond Wheel'' won the National Film & Sound Archive Award for Best Folk Album.
Fagan comes from a family of folk singers and was strongly influenced by traditional
ballads
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads derive from the medieval French ''chanson balladée'' or ''ballade'', which were originally "dance songs". Ballads were particularly characteristic of the popular poetry and ...
. She has said that, whether she writes songs or poems, she feels the same need to create a lyrical work, and that, to her, "lyricism is a heightened awareness of the music of relations between things". She performed with a full band at the 2014 National Folk Festival in
Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
.
She has published numerous poems in journals and has published several collections. It has been said of her poetry that it is characterised by a fractured language which incorporates the variety of everyday experience, and reflects the way the mind uses language to assimilate that experience. Her collection ''First Light'' was shortlisted for the
Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
The Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry is awarded annually as part of the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards for a book of collected poems or for a single poem of substantial length published in book form.
Personal life
Kate Fagan and her older brother
James
James is a common English language surname and given name:
*James (name), the typically masculine first name James
* James (surname), various people with the last name James
James or James City may also refer to:
People
* King James (disambiguat ...
joined their parents Bob and Margaret Fagan in folk music performances from a young age, performing as the group ''The Fagans''.
Fagan is married to fellow Australian poet Peter Minter and they have two children.
Selected publications
Chapters in books
*Fagan, K. and Minter, P. (2010), 'Murdering Alphabets, Disorienting Romance: John Tranter and Postmodern Australian Poetics', ''The Salt Companion to John Tranter'', Salt Publishing .
Journal articles
*Fagan, K. (2012), 'A fluke? ver!: reading Chris Edwards', ''Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature''
*Fagan, K. (2009), '"Originals of Revisable Originals": Sampling and Composting in the Poetry of Peter Minter, Paul Hardacre and Kate Lilley', ''Angelaki'', 9.
Other publications
*2010, 3 Centos: ''Blackbox Manifold'', Vol. 4
*2010, "The Correspondence": ''Ekleksographia'' online journal
*2011, Selection of poems in ''Thirty Australian Poets''
*2011, Selection of poems in ''HEAT'' magazine
*2011, 'Poem in ''Spoken in One Strange Word'', anthology of the 2011 Queensland Poetry Festival
*2010, ''The Octet Rule''
*2010, ‘Workman, Honeyeater’: published in ''Poems to Share'', an educational kit developed by The Red Room Company
*2012, ‘Poems by Kate Fagan’ in ''Fifty-one Contemporary Poets from Australia''
*2012, ''First Light'': described as poetry with an "unerring sense of musical poise"
*2012, ''Poems by Kate Fagan''