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Hazel Smith (writer)

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Hazel Smith
Born1950
Leeds
Occupation(s)Professor emerita, poet
Writing career
GenreElectronic literature, Poetry
AwardsFellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales
Academic work
InstitutionsWestern Sydney University

For the musician, see Hazel Smith

Hazel Smith is an experimental and performance poet, electronic literature writer, a multimedia artist, musician and academic. In addition to her artistic career, she is known for her scholarship on practice-based research. She has published nine poetry collections, over 40 sound and multimedia works and five academic books. She is an Emeritus Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre at Western Sydney University, and an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales.[1]

Education and career

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Smith was born in Leeds in the United Kingdom in 1950. Smith's mother, Eta Cohen, was a violin teacher.[2] and Smith followed in footsteps as a violinist and violin teacher in the 1970s and early 1980s.[3] In London she was a member of the experimental music group Lysis where she played violin, using a modulator to electronically alter the sound.[4] After completing a PhD in American literature, Smith moved to Australia, where Lysis was renamed Australysis. Smith started writing experimental poetry and became a contributor in Australia to sound poetry and poetry/music collaborations. Subsequently, she became active in electronic literature and multimedia work.

After she completed her PhD on Frank O'Hara in 1988, Smith spent 28 years in academia (at the Universities of New South Wales, Canberra and Western Sydney). After retiring in 2017 she has been an Emeritus Professor in the Writing and Society Research Centre, Western Sydney University.

In 2025 she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New South Wales.[1]

Works

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Early musical career

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Before becoming a poet and academic, Smith was a violinist, leading and recording with the chamber ensembles LYSIS and Sonant,[5] becoming a member of the Philharmonia Orchestra, and working with notable classical and new music ensembles such as the London Sinfonietta[citation needed]

Poetry

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Smith's early poetry in the 80s and 90s was centered on formal and linguistic experimentation which was aligned with British "linguistically innovative poetry"[6] and American 'language poetry' as well as other modernist, postmodernist and lyric poetry traditions. This emphasis on formal experimentation has continued into in her later work but is accompanied by a stronger emphasis on social, political and psychological themes.[7] In her review of Hazel Smith's "In the game I make of sense," Joy Wallace explains that Hazel Smith's poetry uses "text sounds" to interact with technology.[8] Chris Arnold terms her work "relentlessly experimental."[9]

Smith's poetry volumes (listed below) have received academic and critical attention. Broad discussion of her work has appeared in many books and journals.[10] Major critical review books refer to her 'consistently experimental work' in poetry.[11]

Her books of poetry include:

  • Keys Round Her Tongue (2000). This collection of short prose, poems, and performance texts experiments with language and was inspired by "Casurina Woman" by Sieglinde Karl-Spence (a woman made of needles).[12]
  • The Erotics of Geography (2008). This work includes audio and audio visual pieces "to turn this moonlit map upside down."[13]
  • Word Migrants (2016). This poetry uses "mix-up" texts of quotes and phrases from the internet.[14] Joy Wallace further notes that Smith's fourth volume of poetry is divided into thematic sections that cover Jewish history, ethical art, language, and loss and grief.[15] Ann Vickery analyzes poems in this work in the context of dementia, which considers connections between fluency and language difficulties.[16] Andy Jackson closely reads another poem in this collection, "The Poetics of Discomfort" to examine how disabilities and difficulties with language intersect.[17]
  • Ecliptical (Spineless Wonders, 2022) This work covers poetry creation, social and political concerns, human connections, identities and cultural differences, the female body, and time and perspective.[18] Wallace characterizes the project's aims "to propel earthly dwellers on paths we cannot immediately discern but must help to carve out.[19]
  • Heimlich Unheimlich: A poetry and art collaboration with Sieglinde Karl-Spence (2024). This work interweaves women's stories, which are named after different types of cloth (Muslin and Hessian).[20]

Electronic literature, performance poetry, and multimedia work

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Smith was also active in Australia in sound and performance poetry, as represented in her earlier volumes, and on her CDs and CD-Rom (see below). Subsequently, in electronic literature and multimedia, she has published and exhibited numerous collaborative works, involving her text and text performance alongside image and sound and has been described as "a foremost electronic poet".[21] She has performed and broadcast her work in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia and is a founding member of the sound and multimedia creative ensemble austraLYSIS.[22] There are several academic studies on her multimedia works.[23][24][25]

Her electronic literature works include:

  • Mid-Air Conversations (2007) is a moving and spatial algorithmic speech piece (a generative piece) from MAX/MSP patches that move between fragments of text.[26]
  • Motions (2014) with Will Luers (image) and Roger Dean (sound) focuses on human trafficking.[27] It was first published in Electronic Literature Organization's (ELO) Electronic Literature Collection 3[28] and then curated in The NEXT Museum, Library, and Preservation Space. The work uses HTML5 and jQuery to assemble images, video, and text to create a soundscape.[28]
  • novelling (202) with Will Luers (image) and Roger Dean (sound) remixes novels as a generative work, using text, video, and sound was first published in Electronic Literature Organization's (ELO) Electronic Literature Collection 4.[29] Alessandra Di Tella [d] contrasts this work with Tristano, a hyper-novel by Nanni Balestrini.[30] Fragments of text, video, and sound are presented in 6 minute cycles, with a change in interface every 30 seconds or at the reader's choice.[31] This work was shown in libraries in Norway, Denmark, and Romania.[32]

Academic research

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Smith's academic research has focused on the areas of experimental writing, contemporary poetry, relationships between literature and music, electronic literature and creative writing process and pedagogy.[33] Sarah Law explains that Hazel Smith's academic criticism informs her poetry.[13] She has contributed five major academic books, and numerous research articles. For example, she co-edited Practice-led Research, Research-led Practice in the Creative Arts, Edinburgh University Press, 2009, which has >1350 citations.[34] Her volume The Writing Experiment: strategies for innovative creative writing, was designed for higher education creative writing courses and used internationally.[35] She is also a co-editor of the creative arts journal of online sound, text and image, soundsRite[36] and created its antecedent, Inflect, archived at the soundsRite site.

Awards

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The Australian Broadcasting Corporation nominated Poet Without Language nominated to represent Australia for the Prix Italia Prize in 1992.[37]

In 2005, The Writing Experiment: strategies for innovative creative writing was shortlisted for the peer-reviewed Australian Publishing Association Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing in the tertiary single-title category.[citation needed]

novelling was shortlisted for the international Turn on Literature Prize in 2017.[citation needed]

In 2018, together with Luers and Dean, she was awarded first place in ELO's international Robert Coover prize for their collaboration, novelling.[38][39]In 2023, another collaboration with Luers and Dean, Dolphins in the Reservoir, was shortlisted for the international New Media Writing Prize run by Bournemouth University, UK.

Dolphins in the Reservoir was shortlisted in 2023 for the international New Media Writing Prize run by Bournemouth University, UK.[citation needed]

References

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  1. ^ a b "Society welcomes new Members and Fellows: May 2025". The Royal Society of NSW. 28 May 2025. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  2. ^ Smith, Hazel (10 December 2012). "Eta Cohen obituary". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  3. ^ Austalysis (Musical group); Xenakis, Iannis; Bright, Colin; Dean, R. T.; Smith, Hazel; Cresswell, Lyell; Rue, Rik (1994), Windows in Time, Glebe, NSW [Australia]: Tall Poppies, OCLC 36044924 Windows in Time on iTunes
  4. ^ Fine, Milo (January–February 1982). "Lysis: Dualyses". OP (14: The I Issue). Olympia, Wash.: Lost Music Network: 9. ISSN 0276-8747. OCLC 1296143728 – via Internet Archive.
  5. ^ "Darius Milhaud: Quintette n.1 op.316 (1952)". YouTube. 13 August 2016.
  6. ^ Sheppard, Robert (2005). "6 - Linguistically Innovative Poetry 1978–2000". The Poetry of Saying: British Poetry and its Discontents, 1950–2000. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. pp. 142–170. ISBN 978-1-84631-380-6. OCLC 647882393 – via EBSCO and The Wikipedia Library.
  7. ^ Smith, Hazel (14 February 2023). "'A poem is not a puzzle with a correct answer': Anne Brewster in Conversation with Hazel Smith". Cordite Poetry Review (Interview). Interviewed by Brewster, Anne. ISSN 1445-5986. OCLC 222972884. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  8. ^ Wallace, Joy (December 1995). ""In the game I make of sense": The poetry of Hazel Smith". Southerly: A Review of Australian Literature. 55 (4). Sydney, Aust.: English Association Sydney: 136–146. ISSN 0038-3732. OCLC 633198200. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  9. ^ Arnold, Chris (August 2022). "Itchy feet: New poetry from Alison Flett and Hazel Smith". Australian Book Review (445). Southbank, Victoria: Australian Book Review Inc. ISSN 2208-9225. OCLC 1251798793.
  10. ^ Wallace, Joy (2014). "Flagging down the flâneuse in Hazel Smith's City Poems". In Conti, Christopher; Gourley, James (eds.). Literature as Translation/Translation as Literature. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 67–80. ISBN 978-1-4438-5768-0. OCLC 875097340.
  11. ^ Middleton, Peter (2005). "Poetry after 1970". In Marcus, Laura; Nicholls, Peter (eds.). The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century English Literature. Cambridge University Press. p. 784. doi:10.1017/chol9780521820776.045. ISBN 978-0-521-82077-6. OCLC 268785568. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  12. ^ Taylor, Michelle (1972). "Myth, Parodic, Erotic". LINQ (Literature in North Queensland). 28 (2). Townsville: James Cook University of North Queensland English Department: 76–77. ISSN 0817-458X. OCLC 925154515.
  13. ^ a b Law, Sarah (2008). "The Erotics of Geography, Hazel Smith". Reading by Silvery Moonlight. Stride Magazine. ISSN 1083-8759. OCLC 32905270. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  14. ^ Sefton-Rowston, Adelle (10 November 2017). "A Review of Hazel Smith's 'Word Migrants'". Westerly Magazine. ISSN 0043-342X. OCLC 655294583. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  15. ^ Wallace, Joy (4 August 2016). "Discomfort Enacted In Writing: Word Migrants by Hazel Smith". Sydney Review of Books. ISSN 2201-8735. OCLC 830553411. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  16. ^ Vickery, Ann (30 October 2021). "Towards a hospitable poetics: Accommodating dementia through contemporary lyric". TEXT. 25 (Special 64): 11–13. doi:10.52086/001c.30992. ISSN 1327-9556. OCLC 183180032.
  17. ^ Jackson, Andy (2019). "Staring at the Other: Seeing Defects in Recent Australian Poems". Critical Disability Discourses /Discours Critiques dans le Champ du Handicap. 9. Critical Disability Studies Graduate Student Association: 1-24. doi:10.25071/1918-6215.39746 (inactive 25 June 2025). OCLC 1142794410.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of June 2025 (link)
  18. ^ Jones, Jill (October 2024). "Page Soundings: Around About". Reviews. TEXT. 28 (2): 32–40. doi:10.52086/001c.125266. ISSN 1327-9556. OCLC 183180032. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  19. ^ Wallace, Joy (2023). "'More of a performer than a listener': Reading Hazel Smith's Ecliptical". Electronic Book Review. doi:10.7273/K0B0-BY48. ISSN 1553-1139. OCLC 38577076. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  20. ^ Frank, Jane (March 2025). "Heimlich Unheimlich: A poetry and art collaboration". StylusLit (17). ISSN 2207-4473. OCLC 973877999. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  21. ^ Carruthers, A. J. (2024). Vickery, Ann (ed.). The Cambridge companion to Australian poetry. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University press. p. 348. ISBN 978-1-009-47018-6. OCLC 1423504412.
  22. ^ "austraLYSIS, Roger Dean, Hazel Smith: works". www.australysis.com. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  23. ^ Mycak, Sonia (1997). "Nuraghic Echoes: Echoes of the Self". Australian Women's Book Review. 9 (1). Melbourne: Victoria University of Technology: 30–31. ISSN 1033-9434. OCLC 1064423390.
  24. ^ Skoulding, Zoë (2013). "Performance and Absence in the Heterotopian City". Contemporary Women's Poetry and Urban Space: Experimental Cities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 202–205. ISBN 978-1-137-36804-1. OCLC 860766255.
  25. ^ Kouvaras, Linda Ioanna (2013). Loading the Silence: Australian Sound Art in the Post-Digital Age. Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate. p. [page needed]. ISBN 978-1-4094-4157-1. OCLC 828743761.
  26. ^ "PennSound: Hazel Smith and Roger Dean". CPCW: The Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Archived from the original on 27 March 2025. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  27. ^ bknjxv (13 October 2020). "Motions & Pieces Of Herself". E-Literature Studies. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  28. ^ a b "Electronic Literature Collection - Volume 3". collection.eliterature.org. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  29. ^ "Electronic Literature Collection Volume 4". collection.eliterature.org. Archived from the original on 15 September 2024. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  30. ^ Di Tella, Alessandra (2020). "Da Tristano a Novelling e viceversa: appunti per un'analisi mediale comparata" [From Tristano to Novelling and vice versa: Notes for a Comparative Medium-Oriented Analysis]. Studi culturali (in Italian) (2): 205–220. doi:10.1405/97978. ISSN 1824-369X. OCLC 1366422925.
  31. ^ Wright, David Thomas Henry (29 October 2020). "Collaboration and authority in electronic literature" (PDF). TEXT. 24 (Special 59): 0–11. doi:10.52086/001c.23486. ISSN 1327-9556. Retrieved 26 June 2025.
  32. ^ "How to work with electronic literature? Read here!". Turn on Literature – Using Libraries to Bring New Audiences to Digital Literature. 22 March 2019. Retrieved 26 June 2025.
  33. ^ "WSRC Centre Adjuncts". Western Sydney University. 26 June 2025. Retrieved 26 June 2025.
  34. ^ Hazel Smith publications indexed by Google Scholar
  35. ^ Hosking, Rick (May 2005). "Rick Hosking reviews 'The Writing Experiment: Strategies for innovative creative writing' by Hazel Smith". Australian Book Review (271). Southbank, Victoria: Australian Book Review Inc. ISSN 2208-9225. OCLC 1251798793.
  36. ^ "soundsRite homepage". soundsrite.uws.edu.au. Retrieved 26 June 2025.
  37. ^ "Hazel Smith". Poetry and Poetics. Retrieved 25 June 2025.
  38. ^ Mebuke, Taman (2024). "On Defining Electronic Literature within the Realm of Digital Art". Journal of English Linguistics and Literature Review. 1 (2). Los Angeles, CA: STSL Press: 1–15. ISSN 3065-6095.
  39. ^ "Announcing the Winners of the 2018 ELO Prize". Electronic Literature Organization. 18 August 2018. Retrieved 26 June 2025.
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