The Jaguar

Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning Australian poet, editor and critic. Born in Southport, Queensland in 1982, she grew up in Australia and the United States, and has also lived in Italy and Japan. She holds a first-class Honours degree in Literature, an MPhil and a PhD from the University of Queensland, and an MFA in Poetry from New York University, where she was the W.G. Walker Memorial Fulbright Scholar from 2010-2011. She has received fellowships from Yaddo and MacDowell, an Asialink Literature Residency, a Chateau de Lavigny Fellowship, a Hawthornden Fellowship, a Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, and the Australia Council Literature Residency at the B.R. Whiting Studio in Rome, among other honours. Her first book, Aria, was the recipient of several literary prizes, including the Anne Elder Award, the Arts ACT Judith Wright Prize and the Thomas Shapcott Prize, was shortlisted in both the New South Wales and Queensland Premiers' Literary Awards, and was commended for The Age's Poetry Book of the Year. Her second book, The Hazards, won the 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier's Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, the Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Prize, and the John Bray Memorial Poetry Award. Her third book, The Jaguar, won the 2023 Stella Prize and the Queensland Premier’s Award for State Significance, and was named The Australian newspaper’s 2022 Book of the Year. The Jaguar was also longlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the ALS Gold Medal, and shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize. Her UK retrospective, The Jaguar: Selected Poems, is due from Bloodaxe in September 2024. She will be in the UK to give readings from the book in autumn 2024, supported by a travel grant from Australia Council for the Arts.