Michael Brennan (poet)

Michael Brennan (born 1973) is an Australian poet. He is the founder of publisher Vagabond Press.^[1]

• The Imageless World, 2003 (Salt Publishing)
• Language Habits (Chapbook), 2006 (The Vagabond Press)
• Sky was Sky (with Akiko Muto), 2007, translated by Yasuhiro Yotsumoto (The Vagabond Press)
• Atopia (with Kay Orchison), 2008
• Unanimous Night, 2008 (Salt Publishing)
• Autoethnographic, 2012 (Giramondo Publishing co.)
• Alibi, 2015 (The Vagabond Press)
• Alibi, 2015, Japanese Edition, translated by Yasuhiro Yotsumoto (The Vagabond Press)
• The Earth Here, 2018 (ASM)

From 2004 to 2019, Brennan lived in Japan and worked as an author, editor, critic and professor. Brennan has taught English literature and cultural studies at universities in both Australia and Japan.^[1] In 2019, he resigned from his role of associate professor and lecturer at Chuo University in the faculty of Policy Studies, to return to Sydney to focus on writing and publishing with the Vagabond Press.^[2]

Brennan has contributed as an editor to a number of texts, including Absence and Negativity, published by Halstead in 2000, Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets, published by Paper Bark Press and co-edited by Peter Minter in 2000, and Noel Rowe's Posthumous collection: A Cool and Shaded Heart: Collected poems, published by Vagabond Press in 2008.^[1] He also published 'Living Systems' in 2024, an anthology bringing together 170 poets from Asia Pacific and 25 years of poetry publishing.

Brennan has also contributed to the Poetry International Website as the Australian editor from 2004 to 2012, writing introductions,^[3] interviews^[4] and criticism.^[5]Brennan sees the Australian section of Poetry International Web “as both an online quarterly journal and as an archive of Australian poetry” and attempts to “engage the determination of 'Australia' and 'Australian poetry' in the introduction of each issue”.^[5] In regards to the Australian section of Poetry International Web, Michael Brennan has stated “I would like to keep building the site so that it becomes more inclusive, better able to show the sheer breadth of difference available in poetry stemming from Australia”^[5]

In regards to the international connections made through Poetry International Web, Brennan has said “one of the most exciting aspects of the Poetry International Website, (is) the ability to move beyond the pragmatic boundaries of nation, and support engagements that might otherwise not happen”.^[5]

Brennan has contributed as a critic for Australian Book Review.^[6]

Brennan first began publishing with the Vagabond Press in July, 1999. The first titles published by the Vagabond Press were two chapbooks, ‘The Dead’ written by poet David Brooks and ‘Falling Objects’ by Nick Riemer.^[7] The chapbooks were the first of the Rare Objects Series, which would grow to include over 100 different collections by 2014. All titles in the series are written by Australian poets. The concept of the Rare Objects Series is that there are only a limited number of copies of each title, with only 100 being published each time. Each copy of each title throughout the series was signed by the author, and given a number from 1–100. The Vagabond Press has stated that the series was based on “a combination of the design values of French press Fata Morgana and Neil Astley's beautiful Poetical Histories series”.^[7]

Brennan has stated that the Vagabond Press “started with $500 and … basically built from there”^[5] and that he looks for “shared commitment” in the authors he chooses to publishes, due to the limited resources that the Vagabond Press has to work with.^[2] In his interview with Australian Book Review for Publisher of the Month, Brennan stated “Twenty years of unpaid labour followed” the founding of the Vagabond Press.^[2] The Vagabond Press has published the work of writers from Australia, France, England and America.^[5]

Work that Brennan has published with The Vagabond Press includes Kate Lilley's award-winning poetry collection Tilt, which won the Victorian Premier's Literary Award for Poetry in 2019. In an interview with The University of Sydney, Lilley stated “My publisher, Michael Brennan, started Vagabond Press at this university and has built a wonderful list. I'm immensely grateful to him”.^[8]

Whilst the home base for the Vagabond Press is in Marrickville, Sydney, Australia, Brennan spent 15 years publishing abroad in Japan, from 2004 to 2019.^[2]On Brennan's return to Sydney he planned to increase the sustainability of The Vagabond Press and “explore new trajectories, such as novellas and essays”.^[2]