Acres of Light

Katherine Gallagher was born in 1935 in Australia, graduating from the University of Melbourne and teaching in Melbourne before moving to Europe in 1969. Living first in London, then in Paris, she moved back to London, where she worked as a secondary school teacher and as a poetry tutor for the Open College of the Arts, Jackson’s Lane, Barnet College and Torriano. During this time she co-edited Poetry London. In 1978, she was awarded a New Writer’s Fellowship from the Literature Board, Australia Council, and in 1981, she won the Brisbane Warana Poetry Prize. Her book Passengers to the City (1985) was shortlisted for the 1986 Adelaide Festival John Bray National Poetry Award and in 1987, she was one of five poets representing Australia at the Struga Poetry Festival. Her second book, Fish-rings on Water, introduced by Peter Porter, appeared in 1989 and in 2000, her third full collection, Tigers on the Silk Road was published by Arc. Three further collections followed from Arc: Circus-Apprentice (2006), Carnival Edge (2010) and Acres of Light (2016). Her translation of Jean-Jacques Celly’s poetry collection, Le Somnambule Aux Yeux d’Argile (The Sleepwalker with Eyes of Clay) was published in 1994 Katherine has received, among other accolades, a Royal Literary Fund Award in 2000 and two London Society of Authors’ Foundation Awards, in 2008 and 2021 respectively. She has read her poetry at festivals and universities in the UK, Australia, Ireland, Germany, Italy and France and her poems have been translated into French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Romanian and Serbo-Croat.