Tric O'Heare
POET WRITER TEACHER
The Work
O’Heare’s work has appeared in many Australian journals, newspapers, and anthologies, as well as in Irish and New Zealand publications. These include, but are not limited to, The Age, The Canberra Times, Sydney Morning Herald, The Best Australian Poems 2005 and The Best Australian Poems 2014, The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2012, Australian Poetry Journal, Motherlode – Australian Women’s Poetry 1986-2008, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, Australian Poetry Anthology, Blue Dog, A Fine Line, Perfect Diary, The Yellow Nib, Pandora and Poetrix.
O’Heare’s poem ‘Witness Sestina’ was highly commended in the ACU Poetry Prize, 2024. In 2022, O'Heare won the Lake Macquarie Memorial Park Award from the Hunters Writers Centre for her poem ‘Cloudy Mountain’. This poem is part of the anthology, Grieve 10: Stories and Poems of Grief and Loss published on August 2022, and also includes her poem, 'Pandemic, a Villanelle in Time of (Hunter Writers Centre, 2022).
Her first poetry collection, Tender Hammers, was published by Five Islands Press in 2003, and a chap book, Fear of Umbrellas by MARK TIME BOOKS in 2013. Her collection ‘Marrow’ (MARK TIME BOOKS, 2021) gathers work written over twenty years.
Some of her poems have been shortlisted in international competitions including the ACU Poetry Prize 2024, ACU Poetry Prize 2021, ACU Poetry Prize 2020 and the Newcastle Poetry Prize 2012. Others have been awarded commendations and places in competitions including a commendation in the Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize for 2013, second place in the W B Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and New Zealand 2001, a commendation in the W B Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and New Zealand 2011, a commendation in the Woorilla Annual Poetry Prize 2004, a commendation in the Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize 2001, first place in the Latrobe University Environmental Competition 1999, and first place in the Australian Irish Heritage Association’s Irish Famine Commemorative Literary Prize 1998. Selected with five other poets for Five Islands Press New Poets Series, she has travelled across Australia, reading her work from Sydney to Perth and Hobart to Newcastle. O’Heare has also co-authored with Ross Donlon two books on teaching poetry (Blake, 2005).
In 2002 O’Heare was the recipient of a Victorian Writers’ Centre (now Writers Victoria) Poetry Mentorship with Gig Ryan.
Her prize-winning poem ‘Madonna of the Dry Country’, published in Tender Hammers (Five Island Press, 2003) and anthologised in Motherlode (Puncher and Wattmann, 2009) is discussed in the Body-Poetics of the Virgin Mary: Mary’s Maternal Body as Poem of the Father by Jane Petkovic (Pickwick Publications, 2021). O’Heare’s most recent book, Like a Girl on a Page (MARK TIME BOOKS, 2024) was launched at Readings, Carlton on 29 October, 2024. The book explores the devastating impact of the loss of a young person to suicide. Link to the Poetry launch: Like a Girl on a Page — Readings Books.
Her first poetry collection, Tender Hammers, was published by Five Islands Press in 2003, and a chap book, Fear of Umbrellas by MARK TIME BOOKS in 2013. Her collection ‘Marrow’ (MARK TIME BOOKS, 2021) gathers work written over twenty years.
Some of her poems have been shortlisted in international competitions including the ACU Poetry Prize 2024, ACU Poetry Prize 2021, ACU Poetry Prize 2020 and the Newcastle Poetry Prize 2012. Others have been awarded commendations and places in competitions including a commendation in the Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize for 2013, second place in the W B Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and New Zealand 2001, a commendation in the W B Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and New Zealand 2011, a commendation in the Woorilla Annual Poetry Prize 2004, a commendation in the Melbourne Poets Union International Poetry Prize 2001, first place in the Latrobe University Environmental Competition 1999, and first place in the Australian Irish Heritage Association’s Irish Famine Commemorative Literary Prize 1998. Selected with five other poets for Five Islands Press New Poets Series, she has travelled across Australia, reading her work from Sydney to Perth and Hobart to Newcastle. O’Heare has also co-authored with Ross Donlon two books on teaching poetry (Blake, 2005).
In 2002 O’Heare was the recipient of a Victorian Writers’ Centre (now Writers Victoria) Poetry Mentorship with Gig Ryan.
Her prize-winning poem ‘Madonna of the Dry Country’, published in Tender Hammers (Five Island Press, 2003) and anthologised in Motherlode (Puncher and Wattmann, 2009) is discussed in the Body-Poetics of the Virgin Mary: Mary’s Maternal Body as Poem of the Father by Jane Petkovic (Pickwick Publications, 2021). O’Heare’s most recent book, Like a Girl on a Page (MARK TIME BOOKS, 2024) was launched at Readings, Carlton on 29 October, 2024. The book explores the devastating impact of the loss of a young person to suicide. Link to the Poetry launch: Like a Girl on a Page — Readings Books.
