Wild Bees: New and Selected Poems

by Martin Harrison

Subtle and sharply lyrical, these poems shimmer on the eye while being deeply held at the back of the mind. Martin Harrison has been described as a writer whose poetry is a meeting place between the immensity, and intensity, of the Australian environment and the hi-tech world of everyday life. Collected here is the poet's own re-casting of his work since the early 1990s, setting accomplished poems from earlier books in the company of recent poems and prose poems. Martin Harrison's Wild Bees: New and Selected Poems marks a place of arrival and a new departure.

Genres: Poetry

168 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Martin Harrison is a British art historian, curator, and author, internationally recognized for his expertise in photography, stained glass, and the work of painter Francis Bacon. Beginning his career in the 1960s as a photographer’s assistant at Vogue, Harrison later emerged as a leading authority on British photojournalism with his influential book Young Meteors: British Photojournalism, 1957–1965. He played a key role in reviving interest in forgotten photographers, including Lillian Bassman and Saul Leiter.
Harrison’s curatorial work spans major institutions such as the Victoria and Albert Museum and the National Portrait Gallery, with exhibitions held across Europe, the United States, and Mexico. A founding trustee of the English Stained Glass Museum at Ely Cathedral, he also contributed significantly to the study of Victorian stained glass and Pre-Raphaelite art.
His most celebrated contribution lies in his extensive scholarship on Francis Bacon. Since 1999, Harrison has authored several critical texts on the artist’s work and its sources, culminating in the five-volume Francis Bacon: Catalogue Raisonné (2016), a landmark in Bacon studies. He continues to lead academic discourse as editor of the Francis Bacon Studies series, focusing on the artist’s intellectual and visual influences, particularly cinema and photography.
Across a multifaceted career, Harrison has combined visual analysis with rigorous scholarship, leaving a lasting impact on the study of modern art and visual culture.