Michael Brennan was born in Sydney in 1973. He graduated from the University of Sydney and completed a PhD (on the poetry of Robert Adamson) in 2001. His first poetry collection, The Imageless World (2003) won the Mary Gilmore Award in 2004 and was shortlisted for the Victorian Premier's Award. He also received the Marten Bequest travelling scholarship for Poetry in 2004, spent time in Berlin and, thanks to the help of a Nancy Keesing Studio residency from the Australia Council for the Arts, at the Cité Internationale des Arts. His second collection of poems, Unanimous Night, was published in 2008, winning the William Baylebridge Memorial Prize and being shortlisted for the NSW Premier's award.
Brennan has taught in the fields of English literature and cultural studies at universities in Australia and Japan. He currently lives in Tokyo, where he is an associate professor in the Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University. Besides poetry he has written literary criticism, and was co-editor (with Peter Minter) of the anthology Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets (2000), and editor of a posthumous selection of Noel Rowe’s poetry, A Cool and Shaded Heart (2008). He is the Australian editor of the online, Netherlands-based poetry journal, Poetry International Web (http://www.poetryinternational.org), and director of the independent publisher Vagabond Press.
Poetry Collections- The Imageless World (Cambridge: Salt, 2003).
- Unanimous Night (Cambridge: Salt, 2007).
- Michael Brennan, ‘A Short History of Vagabond Press and Poetry International Australia,’ Cordite Poetry Review no.22 (2005), online, http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/14234/20051128-0000/www.cordite.org.au/archives/000956.html
- Melanie Duckworth, [Review of Michael Brennan's The Imageless World], Research in Australian Studies 1.1 (2006), online http://www.nationaltreasures.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/ras/article/viewFile/579/647
- Michael Farrell, ‘The Imageless World, Michael Brennan: A Travelling Review,’ Antipodes 18.2 (2004), pp. 132–35.
- Paul Kane, ‘The Limits of Poetry,’ Jacket no.27 (2005), online, http://jacketmagazine.com/27/kane-bren.html
- Bridie McCarthy, [untitled review of Unanimous Night], Blue Dog 7.14 (2008), pp. 42–48.
- David McCooey, ‘The Impossible Words’, [review of Michael Brennan's The Imageless Word], Australian Book Review, February (2004), online http://home.vicnet.au/~abr/Feb04/McCooey.htm
- David McCooey, [Judges' reports on the short-listed books for the Victorian Premiers Awards 2004, online http://www.slv.vic.gov.au/programs/literary/pla/cjdprize/shortlist2004.html
- David McCooey, ‘Surviving Australian Poetry: the New Lyricism,’ Agenda 41.1-2 (2005), pp. 22–36.
- David McCooey, ‘A Gathering of Words’, [review of Michael Brennan's Unanimous Night], Jacket 26, 2008, online http://jacketmagazine.com/36/r-brennan-rb-mccooey.shtml
- Greg McLaren, ‘Postcards and Letters,’ Southerly 64.3 (2004), pp. 202–06.
- Lyn Mcredden et al, ‘Mary Gilmore Award Judge's Statement’, Association of Studies in Australian Literature, 2004, online http://asaliterature.com/wp_content/uploads/2008/03/04gilmorereport
- Martin Shearsman, ‘Four New Collections from Salt’, [review of Michael Brennan's The Imageless World], Exeter, England: Shearsman Press, 2004, online http://www.shearsman.com/pages/magazine/back_issues/shearsman58/anderson_4salt.html
