David Musgrave (born 1965) is an
Australian poet, novelist, publisher and critic. He is the founder of and publisher at Puncher & Wattmann, an independent press which publishes Australian poetry and literary fiction. He is also Deputy Chair of
Australian Poetry Limited.
Life and career
Musgrave was born in
Sydney and educated at
Sydney University where in 1997 he received a PhD for his thesis on the topic of
Menippean satire. He worked for a number of years as a CIO in the Health Insurance industry. He currently lectures in creative writing at the University of Newcastle.
His first book, To Thalia (Five Islands Press), was published and commended in the 2004
Anne Elder Award; it was followed by On Reflection (Interactive) in 2005 and Watermark (Picaro) in 2006. "Phantom Limb" (John Leonard Press) was awarded the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 2011. Several of his poems have won major awards in Australia, including having twice won the
Newcastle Poetry Prize in 2008 and 2012. His novel "Glissando: a Melodrama" (Sleepers), published in 2010 was critically well received and short listed for the Prime Minister's Award for Fiction in 2011 and the UTS Glenda Adams Prize for new writing. His book-length poem Anatomy of Voice (GloriaSMH, 2016) was awarded the Judith Wright Calanthe Prize for Poetry in 2016.
He has published numerous articles on
Australian literature, including on
Norman Lindsay's The Magic Pudding and
David Ireland's The Unknown Industrial Prisoner. He has also written on The Black Dog and Depression (published in Tracking the Black Dog by the
Black Dog Institute and published articles on
Samuel Beckett and the
Ern Malley hoax. His latest poetry collection is Selected Poems, published by Eyewear Press in 2021. His study on Menippean Satire in English since the Renaissance, 'Grotesque Anatomies', was published by Cambridge Scholars Press in 2014. Mishearing is forthcoming from Gorilla Books in early 2022.
Awards
1986 –
Henry Lawson Prize for Poetry for the poem Afternoon Ambience
1987 –
Henry Lawson Prize for Poetry for the poem Budapest
1987 –
Sydney University Prize for English Verse for the poem What I did on Sunday
1994 –
Sidney Nolan Gallery Poetry Prize for the poem Glenrowan
2001 – Poets Union/Broadway Poetry Prize for the poem Lagoon