Philip Hammial

Philip Hammial
Philip Hammial
Born	Detroit, Michigan
Occupation(s)	Poet, publisher, editor, artist, art curator
Known for	Poetry and art
Children	One child

Philip Roby Hammial is an Australian poet, publisher, editor, artist and art curator. He has a long list of achievements in writing, publishing and sculpting. His achievements include thirty-four collections of poetry, thirty-four solo sculpture exhibitions, and, acting as the director/curator of The Australian Collection of Outsider Art, twenty-six exhibitions of Australian Outsider Art in five countries.

Hammial's significance to Australian poetry has been recognised by the Australia Council, which awarded him a Senior Writer's Fellowship in 1996, an Established Writer's Fellowship in 2004 and the Nancy Keesing Studio at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris in 2009.

Life

Hammial grew up in and around Detroit, Michigan. Graduated from Farmington High School. After three years in the engine rooms of US Navy ships he went to Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan, and then to Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, where he 'discovered' poetry, art, philosophy and history. Graduating with honours in English Literature and Philosophy, he went on to travel the world for a total of eleven years, visiting eighty-six countries & working in three – Denmark, England and Greece. In 1972 he arrived in Sydney on a tourist visa and nine months later was granted a resident visa. He is now an Australian citizen, Separated from his wife, he has one child, Genevieve Aloka, born in 1997, and has been living in the Blue Mountains since 1994. Hammial started work at the age of twelve and had over eighty jobs in five countries before retiring in 2000. A member of the Woodford Bush Fire Brigade between 1995 and 2003, Hammial fought many of the fires that raged through the Blue Mountains during those years. An environmental and human rights activist, he has worked as a volunteer for the Wilderness Society and for the Free Tibet Action Group.

Literary and artistic career

Hammial has published thirty-four collections of poetry and is the editor of "25 poètes australiens", an anthology published in Trois-Rivières and Paris. He is also the editor with Ulli Beier and Rudi Krausmann of the seminal "Outsider Art in Australia". As at August, 2020 he has had 428 poems published in 132 journals in 17 countries. His work has appeared in 32 poetry anthologies in seven countries. In 2006 he edited "25 poetes australiens", the first anthology of Australian poetry in the French language. The edition of 1000 sold out in Europe and Canada. As the director of The Australian Collection of Outsider Art, he has curated or helped to organise twenty-six exhibitions of Australian Outsider Art – in Australia, Germany, France, Belgium and the United States. The most recent exhibition – "Australian Outsiders" (23 artists) – spent two months at the Orange Regional Gallery, seven weeks at the Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and then went to the Halle St. Pierre in Paris for six months (September 2006 to February 2007) where it was very well received. Hammial himself is also an artist. He has had thirty-four solo exhibitions and his work has been included in over seventy group exhibitions, including two in Paris. His work can be found at the Rex-Livingston Gallery in Katoomba, NSW, Australia. In 1979 he became the editor of Island Press. The oldest small press in Australia still publishing poetry, Island was founded in 1970 by Philip Roberts and has published sixty titles to date.

Two of his poetry collections were short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize – "Bread" in 2001 and "In the Year of Our Lord Slaughter's Children" in 2004 and one was short-listed for the ACT Poetry Book Prize – "Skin Theory" in 2010. His thirty-second collection, "Detroit and Selected Poems", was published by Sheep Meadow Press in NY State, one of the oldest and most prestigious poetry presses in the U.S. He has represented Australia at fifteen international poetry festivals – Poetry Africa 2000 and 2016 in Durban, South Africa; the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poesie, Paris, 2000 and 2015; The World Festival of Poets, Tokyo, 2000; the Festival International de la Poésie, Trois-Rivières, 2004 and 2018; the Micro Festival, Prague, 2009 and 2015; the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poesie, Melbourne, 2010; the Festival Internacional de Poesia de Medellin (Colombia) 2012; the Festival Internacional de Poesia de Granada (Nicaragua) 2014; the Val-de-Marne International Poetry Festival, Paris, 2015; the Struga Poetry Evenings, Struga, Macedonia, 2015 and the Istanbul Writers' Festival in 2016. In 2001 he had a one-month writer-in-residency at the Fundacion Valparaiso in Mojacar, Spain and for six months in 2009/10 he was the Australian writer-in-residence at the Cité International des Arts in Paris.

Awards

1988: Rothman's Foundation Poetry Prize
2001: short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
2004: short-listed for the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
2010: short-listed for the ACT Poetry Prize

Selected bibliography

2021: "Inveigling Snafus", Island Press, Australia
2019: "Squandering Veronicas", Island Press, Australia
2018: "Detroit & Selected Poems", Sheep Meadow Press, United States
2018: "Braggin' Ain't Done Yet", Island Press, Australia
2017: "Rococo", Island Press, Australia
2016: "Testicle & Tomb", Island Press, Australia
2015: "Ticket to Ride", Island Press, Australia
2014: "Sky Burials", Island Press, Australia
2012: "Detroit", Island Press, Australia
2011: "The Beast Should Comply" Flying Island, Macao
2010: "Drink from the Animal", Island Press, Australia
2009: "Skin Theory", Puncher & Wattmann, Australia
2008: "Wig Hat On", Island Press, Australia
2007: "Juggernaut", Island Press, Australia
2006: "Sugar Hits', Island Press, Australia
2005: "Voodoo Realities", Island Press, Australia
2005: "Swan Song", Picaro Press, Australia
2003: "In the Year of Our Lord Slaughter's Children", Island Press, Australia
2000: "Auto One", Vagabond Press, Australia
2000: "Bread", Black Pepper, Australia
1996: "Black Market" (in The Wild Life), Penguin, Australia
1995: "Just Desserts", Island Press, Australia
1994: "With One Skin Less", Hale & Iremonger, Australia
1989: "Travel/Writing" (with Ania Walwicz), Angus & Robertson
1988: "Pell Mell", Black Lightning Press, Australia
1985: "Vehicles" (with Anthony Mannix), Island Press, Australia
1985: "Squeeze", Island Press, Australia
1979: "Swarm", Island Press, Australia
1978: "More Bath, Less Water", Red Press, Australia
1977: "Hear Me Eating", Makar Press, Australia
1977: "Mastication Poems", The Saturday Centre, Australia
1977: "Chemical Cart", Island Press, Australia
1976: "Footfalls & Notes", The Saturday Centre, Australia

As editor

2006: "25 poètes australiens", editor, Ecrits des Forges
1989: "Outsider Art in Australia", co-editor, Aspect

References

Wilde, W., Hooton, J. & Andrews, B. (1994) "The Oxford Companion of Australian

Literature" 2nd ed. South Melbourne, Oxford University Press

External links

Authority control databases
International	ISNI VIAF WorldCat
National	Germany United States Norway
Other	IdRef SNAC