David Harsent

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Harsent (born 1942) is an English poet. He was born in Devon. His Selected Poems 1969 - 2005 appeared in 2007.

During his early career he was part of a circle of poets centred around Ian Hamilton, and forming something of a school, promoting conciseness and imagist-like clarity in verse, though his work has changed and developed a good deal since then.

He has published nine collections of poetry which have won several literary prizes and awards. 'Legion' won the Forward Prize for best collection 2005 and was shortlisted for both the T.S. Eliot and Whitbread Awards. His work in music theatre has involved collaborations with a number of composers (but most often with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, the opera 'Gawain' being their most notable collaboration, perhaps) and has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the South Bank Centre, the Proms, the Kammeroper (Vienna), and broadcast on BBC2, Channel 4 TV and Trio (USA). A new opera, 'The Minotaur' (also with Birtwistle) is scheduled to open at The Royal Opera House in 2008. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway University and in 2005 was appointed Distinguished Writing Fellow at Sheffield, Hallam University.

He is married to actress Julia Watson, and the couple have one child.