Dr Mark Tredinnick BA (Hons), LLB (Hons), MBA, PhD—is a celebrated poet, essayist, and teacher. His many works of poetry and prose include A Gathered Distance, Almost Everything I Know, Egret in a Ploughed Field, Bluewren Cantos, Fire Diary, The Blue Plateau, and The Little Red Writing Book. Since 2003, Tredinnick has published over two hundred works—poems, essays, reviews, papers, and books. For twenty-five years, he’s taught poetry and expressive writing at the University of Sydney, where he was poet in residence in 2018. His many honours include two of the world’s foremost poetry prizes, the Montreal and the Cardiff.
Since 2003, Tredinnick has published over two hundred works—poems, essays, reviews, papers, and books. For twenty-five years, he’s taught poetry and expressive writing at the University of Sydney, where he was poet in residence in 2018. He is a beloved teacher (of writing, literature and ecology), and he’s mentored many writers into print. His many honours include two of the world’s foremost poetry prizes, the Montreal and the Cardiff. ‘His is a bold, big-thinking poetry,’ Sir Andrew Motion has written, ‘in which ancient themes (especially the theme of our human relationship with landscape) are recast and rekindled.’ ‘One of our great poets of place,’ Judy Beveridge has called him.
In 2020, Tredinnick was awarded the Order of Australia Medal for services to literature and education.
Tredinnick’s other honours include two State Premiers’ Literature Prizes, The Blake and Newcastle Poetry Prizes, the ACU and Ron Pretty Poetry Prizes, two Premiers’ Literature Awards, and the Calibre Essay Prize. The Blue Plateau, his landscape memoir, shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Prize.
Dr Tredinnick’s poetry and prose are translated into many languages (German, French, Italian, and Spanish). In recent years his work has become widely known in China. In April 2019, he spent a month in residence at the Lu Xun Academy in Beijing, a guest of the International Writers Program. A selection of one hundred of his poems appears in Chinese in 2021, along with a book of his essays.
Much of Tredinnick’s work—in poetry, prose, advocacy, and teaching—has explored the syntax of places and the ecologies of speech. ‘Our future and our place in it,’ he has written, ‘may depend on how well we care for the health of both—land and language.’ The moral and spiritual landscapes, the geography of what was once called the soul: this also is Tredinnick’s literary terrain.
Tredinnick is the father of five. He writes and lives with his partner Jodie Williams in the Wingecarribee, southwest of Sydney.
Links: www.marktredinnick.com
Flying Islands Pocket Poet Publications
Almost Everything I Know
A selection of Mark’s poems—including, ‘Maybe,’ ‘The Wombat Vedas,’ ‘News of the World, ‘Soft Bombs,’ ‘Catching Fire,’ ‘The Kingfisher,’ and ‘Walking Underwater’—along with immaculate translations into Chinese by Isabelle Li.
