Life

Jan Owen was born Janette Muriel Sincock in Adelaide, South Australia, attending school there and in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, leaving early to work as a laboratory assistant. During the 60s she studied arts part time at the University of Adelaide

University of Adelaide

The University of Adelaide is a public university located in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third oldest university in Australia...

,then librarianship, and later travelled extensively in Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

.

Owen has worked as a writer, creative writing teacher and editor since 1985.

Jan Owen has three children and currently lives in Adelaide.

Poetry

Owen began writing poetry in her thirties and her first collection, Boy with Telescope (1986), won the Anne Elder Award

Anne Elder Award

The Anne Elder Trust Fund Award for poetry is administered by the Victorian branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers and is awarded annually, as the Anne Elder Award, for the best first book of poetry published in Australia. It was established in 1976 and currently has a prize of A$1000 for...

. She has had several writer's residencies in Australia and also in Italy, France, Malaysia, and Scotland.

Her awards include the Mary Gilmore Prize

Mary Gilmore Prize

The Mary Gilmore Prize for the best first book of poetry is given to a first book of poetry from the previous two years; prior to 1998 it was awarded annually...

 and the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize

Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize

The Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize was created in 1996 in memory of the Tasmanian poet, Gwen Harwood. The prize is run by Island Magazine and is awarded to a single poem or a linked suite of poems not longer than 100 lines...

. In 2007, she won the Max Harris Poetry Award for her poem "Scent, Comb, Spoon". The judges wrote: "a well crafted poem full of intriguing resonances on the theme of memory and association. The poem spins a chain of possibilities and disharmonies but always returns to the idea of the value of what we have experienced. This is a poem of turns and surprises and we enjoyed it more with each reading".

In a radio interview in 2002, Owen said that "I sometimes think that I should be writing political satire or trying to tackle the real problems of this world, and then I remember a Taoist saying which is 'You think you can improve the world? I do not think it can be done'." In the same interview, she also said that "poetry is against dogma, against a final certainty, it's very unsettling. ... I think we need the challenge and the shake-up, and the freshness of a new way of looking at things which poetry can give us."

External links

• 3 poems at Friendly Street Poets
  Friendly Street Poets
  Friendly Street Poets is a poetry reading group and publisher in Adelaide, South Australia. It has some claim to be "Australia's longest running community open-poetry reading venue."...
  
  
• 2 poems
• Interview & poems
• Interview
• Rhyme or Riesling about Maastricht International Poetry Nights