A poet, creative writer, therapist and thinker
Shari Kocher
Shari Kocher is an Australian poet, fiction-writer, educator and therapist. She holds a BA from Flinders University, an MA and PhD in Creative Writing from Melbourne University, specialising in the verse novels of Australian poet, Dorothy Porter, and in the writings of Canadian poet and classicist, Anne Carson. She also holds a Diploma in Remedial Massage and a Certificate in AUSLAN, and is currently undertaking developmental training as a Feldenkrais ATM and Functional Integration Practitioner over a course of 3.5 years’ duration with the Feldenkrais Institute of Australia. She is curious, and committed to evolving as well as sustainable practice.
Shari is the author of two poetry collections published by the acclaimed independent Australian press, Puncher & Wattmann: The Non-Sequitur of Snow (2015) and Foxstruck and Other Collisions (2021). The former was shortlisted for the FAW Anne Elder Award (2015) and the latter was Highly Commended at the NSW Premier’s Literature Awards in the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize (2022). Widely anthologized in Australia and elsewhere, including in Best Australian Poems 2021, 2016, 2013, Cordite Poetry Review, Meanjin, Overland, Plumwood Mountain, Southerly and Westerly, Kocher’s work has won or been shortlisted for numerous accolades, including the Peter Steele Poetry Award in 2019 and the University of Canberra Health Poetry Prize in 2016. A further manuscript, Sonqoqui awaits publication. She is currently working on a new poetry/essay collection and a book of short stories, in tandem.
Shari lives and writes and rests as a guest on the unceded lands of the Dja Dja Wurrung peoples in Central Victoria (Australia) where she pays tribute to past, present and future community and to the ancestors and keepers of Bunjil’s law.
