Career
As Jack Curtis and David Lawrence he has published a number of crime fiction novels. During his early career he was part of a circle of poets centred on Ian Hamilton and forming something of a school, promoting conciseness and imagist-like clarity in verse, though his work has changed and developed a good deal since then His work in music theatre has involved collaborations with a number of composers (but most often with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, the opera Gawain being their most notable collaboration) and has been performed at the Royal Opera House, Carnegie Hall, the Southbank Centre, The Proms, the Wiener Kammeroper, and broadcast on British Broadcasting Corporation Two, Channel 4 and Trio (United States of America).
A new opera, The Minotaur (also with Birtwistle), opened at The Royal Opera House in 2008.
Birtwistle once again turned to Harsent"s words for his major song cycle Songs from the Same Earth (2012-2013). Harsent is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, Honorary Research Fellow at Royal Holloway University and in 2005 was appointed Distinguished Writing Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University, where he is now a visiting professor In 2012 he was appointed Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
He left Bath Spa University in favour of The University of Roehampton in July 2013 after receiving an honorary degree. Crow"s Parliament Glory Point of Impact The Confessor Sons of the Morning Circle of the Dead (also released as: The Dead Sit Round in a Ring) Nothing Like the Night Cold Kill Down into Darkness 1967 Eric Gregory Award.
