Tim Thorne



Tim Thorne (born 1944) is a contemporary Australian poet.

Life
Thorne lives in Launceston, Tasmania. He is the author of ten volumes of poetry, the most recent being Best Bitter(PressPress) in 2006 and I Con (Salt) in 2008.

In 1985, he inaugurated the Tasmanian Poetry Festival, which he directed until 2001 and which incorporates his invention, the Launceston Poetry Cup, a performance poetry concept now imitated all over Australia and internationally.

Thorne has been writer-in-residence with a number of organisations, including the Miscellaneous Workers Union and the Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, and has worked as a poet in schools, universities and prisons.

Thorne has had an abiding interest in creating opportunities for poets and other artists with disabilities and from 1998 to 2000 he was National Secretary of DADAA (Disability and the Arts, Disadvantage and the Arts Australia). In 1999-2000, he was writer/co-ordinator for a national project for writers with cerebral palsy, conducted through Arts 'R' Access. In 2002, he was editor of the 'Launceston Longpoem', a web-based community writing project funded through Tasmanian Regional Arts.

Recognition
He has been awarded a number of prizes, including Stanford Writing Scholarship, 1971; New Poetry Award, 1973; Marten Bequest Travelling Scholarship for poetry, 1978, and the Gleebooks Poetry Sprint, 1995. He has also received grants and fellowships from the Australia Council, Arts Tasmania and the Eleanor Dark Foundation.

Publications

 * Tense Mood and Voice. (Lyre-Bird Writers, Sydney, 1969)
 * The What of Sane. (Prism Books, Sydney, 1971)
 * New foundations. (Sydney: Poetry Society of Australia, 1976) ISBN 0-85869-009-8
 * A Nickel In My Mouth. (Robin Hill Books, Flowerdale, 1979)
 * The atlas. (Wentworth Falls, NSW: Black Lightning Press, 1982) ISBN 0-949582-00-X
 * Red Dirt. (Paper Bark Press, Sydney, 1990)
 * The Sreets Aren't for Dreamers. (Shoestring Press, Nottingham, 1995)
 * ''Taking Queen Victoria to Inveresk'. (QVM&AG, Launceston, 1997)
 * Head and shin. (Hobart: Walleah Press, 2004) ISBN 1-877010-03-0
 * Best Bitter. (PressPress, Berry, 2006)
 * A Letter to Egon Kisch. (Cornford Press, Launceston, 2007).
 * I Con. (Salt, 2008)