Adam Aitken



Adam Aitken is an Australian poet. Born in London in 1960, to an Anglo-Australian father and a Thai mother. He spent some of his childhood with relatives in Thailand, and was educated at a convent in Malaysia, before coming to Australia in 1968.

Career
He began writing in the mid-1970s and majored in English and Art Film History at the University of Sydney. He has also completed a Master's in Linguistics and a Doctorate in Creative Arts from the Centre for New Writing, University of Technology, Sydney. He was Associate Poetry Editor for HEAT magazine.

He has published three major collections in Australia and numerous poems in Australian literary journals. He is considered to be a poet of no particular school or trend, postmodern and lyrical at the same time. His influences range from the English Romantic to the French, American and British avante-garde, especially the New York school of poets.

In 1996 his second poetry collection In One House was considered one of the best poetry collections of that year. In 2001, his third collection Romeo and Juliet in Subtitles, was shortlisted for the John Bray South Australian Literary Festival Award, and was runner-up for The Age Book of the Year poetry prize. His fourth collection, Eighth Habitation, was published by Giramondo Press in April 2009. His writing shows a deep interest in contemporary cultural issues, especially issues of identity and cultural hybridity. Adam's work has been translated into French, Swedish, German, Polish, Malay and Mandarin, and is published internationally, most notably in Poetry Magazine.

Books

 * Letter to Marco Polo, Island Press, 1985
 * In One House, HarperCollins/Paper Bark Press, 1996
 * Romeo And Juliet in Subtitles, Brandl & Schlesinger, 2000
 * Eighth Habitation, Giramondo Publishing, 2009
 * Tonto's Revenge, TinFish Press 2011