Paul Hetherington (born 6 March 1958) is an Australian poet and Emeritus Professor at the University of Canberra, Australia. He worked as Director of Publications and Events at the National Library of Australia in the Australian Public Service.
Biography Hetherington completed a doctoral thesis at the University of Western Australia in 1989. Hetherington worked as a sessional tutor while undertaking postgraduate studies and then accepted the job of Publications and Events Coordinator at Fremantle Arts Centre in 1989. In 1990 he joined the Public Service. In 1994 he became director of the National Library's Publications Branch. While in this position he published his own poetry under the National Library of Australia imprint.
After leaving the National Library of Australia following the Donald Friend Diary controversy he lectured at Faculty of Arts and Design at the University of Canberra in 2010 and continued there until 2023. He served on numerous boards in Canberra, ACT and was one of the founders and a former chair of the ACT Writers Centre, now the Marion organisation.
Poetry career Hetherington decided to write poetry at the age of 11 and has commented that 'One of the ways I recognise the poetic is when I find works in which language is condensed, ramifying, polysemous and unparaphraseable.'
The National Library of Australia published Hetherington's poetry chapbook while he was employed at the National Library, Mapping Wildwood Road in 1990 and Fremantle Arts Centre Press published Acts Themselves Trivial, his first full-length poetry collection in 1991.
Career as editor Paul Hetherington was co-editor in 1983 with Victor Bivoltsis and Andrew Masterson of a short-lived literary journal 'Perverse Pleasures'. In what is now considered controversial for its known links to paedophilia, from 2003 to 2006 Hetherington edited the final three volumes of the National Library of Australia's four-volume edition of the diaries of the Australian artist Donald Friend. Volume four of the published diaries covers Friend’s time in Bali and contains explicit accounts of sexual relations with children, several of whom are named. Hetherington has been reported as saying:
"I don’t think Friend behaved in a way that would attract much criticism from people today, which at the time didn’t attract particular criticism either."
And, to the ABC:
"I don't know that we can today go into the complexity of the relationships between Friend and the young men and women who worked as houseboys — essentially that's how he saw them — in the 1960s and 1970s in Bali. Friend's activities and attitudes … throughout his life, and still to this day, [have] met with a wide range of responses … people are entitled and should make up their own minds about what they think of Friend and these activities and his artistic work."Hetherington quoted in Antony Funnell, "Our favourite paedophile: Why is Donald Friend still celebrated?", ABC News, 2 February 2017.
In a review in The Australian, of the diaries Frank Campbell wrote, "Hetherington politely observes, ‘Friend was entirely unsuited to a life of heterosexual monogamy.’ Well, it’s all right Paul, he’s dead, so it’s safe to call Friend a paedophile."Quoted in Michaela Boland, "Art of Darkness", The Australian, October 2017. Republished as "Aussie spotlight on Donald Friend’s paedophelia: He lived here in sixties", The Island, 29 October 2017. Hetherington is recorded as saying on radio,
"There are some things in the diaries obviously that some people will find less attractive than others, but in publishing them, we wanted to publish the diaries as they are, more or less, with the sensitivity that I talked about earlier, because we think that it's important that people can read the material for themselves and make their own mind up about them."
Works
Scholarly Books 2020: (with Cassandra Atherton): Prose Poetry: An Introduction, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. (Hardcover ; Paperback ; Ebook ) 2014: (with Shane Strange and Jen Webb) (eds), Creative Manoeuvres: Writing, Making, Being, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ()
Poetry collections 1991: Acts Themselves Trivial, Fremantle: Fremantle Arts Centre Press () 1993: The Dancing Scorpion, Canberra: Molonglo Press () 1995: Shadow Swimmer, Canberra: Molonglo Press () 1998: Canvas Light, Molonglo Press, Canberra () 2001: Stepping Away: Selected Poems, Canberra: Molonglo Press () 2007: It Feels Like Disbelief, Cambridge, UK: Salt Publishing () 2013: Six Different Windows, Crawley, WA: UWAP () 2015 (with Jen Webb as photographer): Watching the World: Impressions of Canberra, Canberra: Blemish Books () 2016: Burnt Umber, Crawley, WA: University of Western Australia Publishing () 2016: Gallery of Antique Art, Canberra: Recent Work Press () 2017: Ìkaros. Canberra: Recent Work Press () 2018: Moonlight on Oleander: Prose Poems, Crawley, WA: UWA Publishing () 2019: Palace of Memory: An Elegy, Canberra: Recent Work Press () 2020: Typewriter and Manuscript, Melbourne, Vic: Life Before Man () 2020: Fugitive Letters, Canberra: Recent Work Press () [with Cassandra Atherton] 2021: Her One Hundred and Seven Words, Cheshire, MA: MadHat Press 2022: Ragged Disclosures, Canberra: Recent Work Press () 2023: Sleeplessness, Sheridan, WY: Pierian Springs Press (Hardback: ISBN 9781953136626 Paperback: ; Audiobook: )
Verse Novel 2003: Blood and Old Belief: A Verse Novel, Canberra, ANU: Pandanus Books (book: )
Poetry chapbooks 1990: Mapping Wildwood Road, Pamphlet Poets, Series One, No. 4, Canberra: National Library of Australia 2012: Chicken and Other Poems, ed. Judy Johnson, Wagtail 119, Picaro Press 2013: (with Anita Fitton as digital artist): Spectral resemblances, Belconnen, ACT Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2014 (with Jen Webb) Viscera: Poems, Canberra: Dancing Scorpion Press (ISBN ) 2015: (with Cassandra Atherton, Paul Munden, Jen Webb, Jordan Williams): Jars IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2016: (with Cassandra Atherton, Paul Munden, Jen Webb, Jordan Williams): The Taoist Elements: Earth IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2017: (with Cassandra Atherton, Paul Munden, Jen Webb, Jordan Williams): Colours: Blue, IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2018: Wedding Dress and Other Poems, Southern-Land Poets, Spring 2018, Magill, SA: Garron Publishing 2018: (with Cassandra Atherton, Paul Munden, Jen Webb): Prosody, Enjambment, IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2020: (with Cassandra Atherton, Paul Munden, Jen Webb): C19: Intertext || Ekphrasis: The Novel Reader, IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra 2021: (with Cassandra Atherton, Oz Hardwick, Paul Munden, Jen Webb): Five Ages: Golden Age, IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2022: (with Cassandra Atherton, Oz Hardwick, Paul Munden, Jen Webb): Five Tastes: Sour, IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra () 2023: (with Cassandra Atherton, Oz Hardwick, Paul Munden, Jen Webb): Five Oceans: Indian Ocean, IPSI Series: Authorised Theft, Canberra, ACT: International Poetry Studies Institute, Faculty of Arts and Design, University of Canberra) () 2025: Aegean Blues, (with Cassandra Atherton, Oz Hardwick, Paul Munden, Jen Webb), Grief: Five Sequences, Canberra: Recent Work Press (ISBN 9781764106825)
Artist's Books 2016: (with Cassandra Atherton and Phil Day) Prose Poems, Richmond, Vic: Mountains Brown Press 2017: (with Cassandra Atherton and Phil Day) Moon : Prose Poems, Richmond, Vic: Mountains Brown Press
As editor 2003: The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 2, National Library of Australia, Canberra () 2005: The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 3, National Library of Australia, Canberra () 2006: The Diaries of Donald Friend, Volume 4, National Library of Australia, Canberra () 2014: (with Shane Strange and Jen Webb): Creative Manoeuvres: Writing, Making, Being, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing () 2016: (with Jen Webb) Open Windows: Contemporary Australian Poetry–An English-Chinese Anthology, transl Tao Naikan, Shanghai LRN Joint Books Ltd (bilingual anthology: ISBN 9787542656179) 2017: (with Shane Strange) Cities: Ten Poets, Ten Cities, Canberra: Recent Work Press (ISBN 9780995353862) 2020: (with Cassandra Atherton) Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry, Carlton, Vic: Melbourne University Press (ISBN 9780522874747) 2021: (with Cassandra Atherton) The Language in My Tongue: An Anthology of Australian and New Zealand Poetry, Cheshire, MA: FarFlung Editions, MadHat Press (ISBN 9781952335334) 2021: (with Lucy Dougan) Homings and Departures: Selected Poems from Contemporary China and Australia (Australia volume. English–Chinese version), Canberra: Recent Work Press (ISBN 9780645008968) 2022: (with Cassandra Atherton) Alcatraz, Sydney: Gazebo Books (ISBN 9780645464887) 2025: (with Cassandra Atherton) Ricochet: An Anthology of Microlit, Strawberry Hills, NSW: Spineless Wonders (ISBN 9780648398899)
Awards Among the awards Hetherington has received are: 2017: Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Outstanding Achievements in Research or Innovation, University of Canberra (part of the eight-member Creativity and Social Change Team, the Centre for Creative and Cultural Research) (co-winner) 2017: Individual Research Excellence Award, Humanities and Creative Arts, the annual Awards for Research and Innovation Excellence, University of Canberra 2021: Winner, Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize 2022: Winner, Ballina Region for Refugees Seeking Asylum Poetry Prize 2024: Winner, ACT Literary Awards: Inaugural Marion Halligan Award
References