Jean Kent
Jean Kent is a Lake Macquarie poet. Her new collection, Paris Light: A Personal Plan de Paris, combines poems about Paris with paintings by Martin Kent.
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Jean Kent grew up in rural Queensland and now lives at Lake Macquarie, NSW. She has published nine books of poetry: the most recent is The Shadow Box (Pitt Street Poetry, 2023). Since 1990 she has been a regular reader at poetry venues, including Festivals in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, and Newcastle. Her awards include the Anne Elder, Dame Mary Gilmore and Wesley Michel Wright Prizes for books and the National Library, Josephine Ulrick, Somerset and Dorothy Porter Prizes for individual poems. The awards that have most profoundly affected her life are her residencies at the Literature Board’s Keesing Studio, Paris, in 1994 and 2011. Paris in my Pocket, a selection of Jean’s Paris poems, with artwork by her husband, Martin Kent, was launched at the 2016 Newcastle Writers Festival. Her new book, Paris Light: A Personal Plan de Paris (Pitt Street Poetry, 2024), is also a collaborative work with Martin, combining poems and paintings based on their time in Paris.