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Board member Poetry Australia Foundation, 2004 -2006 Honorary Fellow, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne
Robyn Rowland, previously Professor of Social Inquiry at Deakin University, has published nine books, six of them poetry. Silence and its Tongues (Five Islands Press, 2006) and Shadows at the Gate, (Five Islands Press, 2004) were launched to powerful acclaim at Adelaide Writers’ Week and Clifden Arts Week, Ireland. She has read her work at, among others, Melbourne Writers Week, Perth International Arts Festival, Byron Bay Writers’ and Readers’ Festival, Norfolk Island Writers’ and Readers’ Festival, The Australian Poetry Festival (Sydney), Tasmanian Poetry Festival( among others), and in Italy, Turkey, Portugal, Greece, England and Ireland – see below.
Robyn has regularly visited Ireland since 1983 and lived there over extended periods of time (2001/2 funded by Arts Victoria) in Connemara. She has read and given workshops at among others: Cúirt International Festival of Literature(2004), Éigse Michael Hartnett; Listowel Writers Week; Boyle Arts Festival; Yeats Society, Sligo; Scriobh, Sligo; Clifden Community Arts Week; October Arts in Ennis, Co Clare; Kings House Boyle, Roscommon; The Australian Arts and Culture Festival 1999, Dublin (where her third book Fiery Waters was launched by the Australian Ambassador). In February 2000 she was the guest poet at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, funded by the Luso Americana Foundation and the Faculdade de Letras, where she read in the Teatro Academico de Gil Vicente. In 2009 she was guest in Istanbul at SiirIstanbul’09. In 1996 Robyn was made an Officer in the Order of Australia by the Australian Government for her contribution to higher education and women’s health
Poetry books: Seasons of doubt & burning. New & Selected Poems, 2010, forthcoming, Five Islands Press, This Road, Wagtail Series 63, Picaro Press, 2008, Silence & its tongues, Five Islands Press, 2006; Shadows at the Gate Five Islands Press, 2004, Fiery Waters, Five Islands Press, 2001; Perverse Serenity, Spinifex , Melb. 1992; Heinemann, Melb,1990; Filigree in Blood, Longman Cheshire Modern Poets, Melb 1982. Poetry CD, Off the tongue, 2008.
Poetry Judge: International Poetry Prize Melbourne Poets Union, 2009; Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, 2008; ACT Writers’ Centre Poetry Prize 2007; Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award for first book of poetry 2005 and 2006; Society of Women Writers Victoria, 2005; Australian Capital Territory Writer’s Centre Poetry Prize 2005; WB Yeats Australian and New Zealand Poetry Prize 2004.
Poetry Prizes/Awards: The Judith Wright Prize 2007 for Silence & its tongues, shortlisted; Jean Stone Poetry Prize, Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW, 2006; Varuna Writers Retreat Fellowship 2005/6; Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize, Highly commended, 2006; International Poetry Prize, Melbourne Poets Union 2005, second; Martha Richardson Poetry Medal 2005, second; BTG Blue Dog Poetry Reveiwing Competition, 2005, commended; won Catalpa Poetry Prize 2002, from the Australian Irish Heritage Association, as well as the Catalpa Writers Prize 2002 for best of all fiction, essay and poetry; commendation in the W. B Yeats Poetry Prize 2002 for Australia and New Zealand; highly commended (2nd) in the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (Fellowship of Australian Writers); commended in Max Harris Literary Awards; won Canning Literary Award, W.Aust.
Poems in: Poetry Ireland (Ireland), The Shop (Ireland), Agenda Poetry (UK), Cafe Review (USA), Jones av (Canada), Worchester Review (USA), Yomimono (Japan), Táin, Salt-Lick Quarterly (Aust), The Other Voices International Project(USA online), Meanjin, Blue Dog: Australian Poetry, Island; Arena; Divan (online), Poetry Australia, MindFire (e-zine, USA), Quadrant, Overland, Island Magazine, Social Alternatives,The Tasmanian Review, Aspect, Westerly, Luna, Bulletin Literary Supplement, Syllable, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age newspaper, The Australian newspaper Weekend Review, & in New Zealand - Landfall , Climate, Pacific (Moana) Quarterly, Nexus, Comment,Pilgrims (NZ), The New Zealand Listener, Islands.
Invited papers on poetry- a selection - ‘Mother-tongue: Poetry as First Language’, Belgrade International Writers Meeting, 2009 ‘Dear Reader it nearly killed me: life with the personal Muse’, National Library of Australia, Autobiography, Memoir and the Personal Voice, 2008; ‘Removing the dust from memory: poetry and archaeology, Poetry and the Trace, Monash Unicersity,2008; ‘Belonging and Identity. What the Irish have woven into us’, Irish Spaces : homeland and diaspora, Melbourne University 2004; ‘Hot words and Sweet. Writing from life’: Tasmanian Poetry Festival; ‘Passion of poetry’: Norfolk Island Festival; ‘Belonging and Indigenous culture’: Ngara. Living in this place now. Fourth Australian Poetry Festival.
Articles on poetry and the arts:
* Broken time: women poets and the politics of intimacy’, Island, 116, Autumn,2009. *Life in the raw with the personal Muse, Meanjin, Vol 67, 4, 2008. *De-lyricising the lyric? A response to David McCooey's ‘new lyricism’, Blue Dog. Australian Poetry, vol 4 no 8, December 2005. *How might the non-indigenous be at home here? What can we learn from indigenous culture? in John Muk Muk Burke and Martin Langford (eds) Ngara. Living in this place now. Poems essays and meditations. Five Islands Press, Melbourne 2004. *Poetry and audience, letter to Five Bells. Australian Poetry, NSW Poets’ Union, vol 11, no 4, Spring 2004. *Green Turtle Dreaming. Envisioning a way forward in synthesising art and anthropology, Artwork, Issue 62, September 2005.
Poetry Reviews:
‘Nomadic’ by Judy Johnson, in Blue Dog. Australian Poetry, Nov 2004, vol3(6). ‘The Wings of Angels. A Memoir of Madness’ by Sandy Jeffs, Blue Dog. Australian Poetry Vol 4 (9), 2006 ‘Agnostic skies’ by Geoff Page, Blue Dog. Australian Poetry, forthcoming 2007
Anthologised :
Motherlode: Australian Women's Poetry 1986-2008, eds Jennifer Harrison and Kate Waterhouse, Puncher & Wattman Pty Ltd , Sydney, 2009 Literary Creatures, ed. RafaellaTorenson, Hybrid, Melbourne 2009 The Other Voices International Project – US Cyber-anthology, 2009. Ed. Roger Humes. Writings from the Shipwreck Coast, Ed. Robyn Gardner, (Mattoid Grange, Geelong, 2008); The Road South. An Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry, Ed Ron Pretty, (Bengal Creations Pvt Ltd, India, 2007) The Clifden Anthology, ed Brendan Flynn, Celebrating 30 years of Clifden Arts Week, Clifden, Ireland. The Best Australian Poems 2005, ed Les Murray (Black Inc, Schwartz Aust); The Best Australian Poems 2004, ed Les Murray (Black Inc, Schwartz Pub Aust. 2004). Verbal Medicine: 20 Contemporary Poets of Australia and New Zealand, ed. Tim Metcalf, Ginninderra Press, Canberra, 2006 Textbook: English at Eleven Vce Units 1 & 2, 2e, John Wiley and Sons, 2006. Ngara. Living in this place now. Eds John Muk Muk Burke and Martin Langford (Five Islands Press ,2004) ‘Belonging and Indigenous culture’ plus poems Said the Rat! Writers at the Water Rat 2000-2002. Eds. Jennifer Harrison and Phil Ilton (Black Pepper and the Fellowship of Australian Writers, 2003) Around Geelong. Place, Memory and Home. Ed. Wendy Ratawa (Kinross Productions, 2002) The Turning Wave - the verse and song of Irish Australia. Eds - Colleen Z Burke and Vincent Woods (Kardooair Press, Armidale, 2001) Wee Girls. Women writing from an Irish Perspective. Ed. Lizz Murphy. (Spinifex Press, 1996) Kardooair Press, Armidale, 2001. Radically Speaking ed. D Bell and R Klein (Spinifex Press, 1996) Moments of Desire. ed. Susan Hawthorne and Jenny Pausacker (Penguin, 1989) Poetry Involves. ed. Denise Scott, (Heinemann , 1988, U.K. !989) Up from Below: Poems of the 1980’s. An Australian Women’s Anthology (Redress Press, 1987) Poems Selected from the Australian’s 20th Anniversary Competition. Eds. Judith Rodriguez and Andrew Taylor (Angus and Robertson, 1985 The Australian Bedside Book. A Selection of Writings from the Australian Literary Supplement. Ed, Geoffrey Dutton (MacMillan, 1987) Fourth Form English. Ed. Peter Smart ( Longmans, 1980)
Experiential journalism: various articles for the Age newspaper, Saturday Essay and Faith columns.
Other publications: Three Academic books published by Oxford Uni press; Indiana Uni Press USA; Cedar, London; Routledge London; Pan MacMillan Australia; 63 book chapters and numerous editorial and newspaper pieces on research.
Readings/Australia: Robyn has been reading her poetry for 35 years including in Australia at The Adelaide Arts Festival; Women 150 Festival; The Melbourne Poetry Festival; Perth International Arts Festival; Byron Bay Writers’ and Readers’ Festival, Norfolk Island Writers’ and Readers’ Festival; Dan O’Connell, Smith Street, Gertrude street readings; Salon A Muse; Boroondara Soiree; Celtic Club; La Mama Poetica; The Water Rat; Off Chapel Poetry; Readings at Readings; Spoleto Festival Melbourne; Pirra Festival and many more. Radio readings include PoeticA, ABC Radio, and Connemara Radio.
Readings Internationally e.g. University of Coimbra, Portugal; The Birmingham Arts Festival U.K.; Cambridge University; Trinity College Dublin; Cúirt. International Festival of Literature, Galway; Strokestown Poetry Festival, Roscommon; Women’s Arts Festival Dublin Ireland; Listowel Writers Week, Kerry Ireland; Yeats Society, Sligo Ireland; Australian Embassy Dublin; Scriobh, Sligo; Clifden Community Arts Week; October Arts in Ennis, Clare; Boyle, Roscommon; O’Beal, Cork; Cuirt na Ban University College Dublin; University of Coimbra, Portugal; Summer Institute, Lesvos, Greece.
Critical response: The hallmark of Robyn’s poetry is that it conveys the complexity of human feelings and emotions with honesty and in a clear communicative style. Often involved with the tension of living between Australia and Ireland, reviewers have written:
‘Where does she live now but inside language’. Grace O’Grady, National University of Ireland, Maynooth.
‘Memory, anecdotal narrative and strong emotion shape Rowland’s strong, personal and well-crafted verse.’ Eileen Battersby, The Irish Times
Silence & its tongues:
‘The poems’ settings range from Australian to Ireland, but the truer landscape is the human heart, scarred but resilient ... Rowland’s lessons, transmitted through rich poetic language, can be heard by anyone willing to listen with both the head and the heart. Michael C. Kuhne. Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian literature.
Filigree in Blood: was ‘powerful and commanding’, ‘with that degree of integrity which makes one pay attention’.
Perverse Serenity: was described by critic and poet Barrett Reid as ‘drawn with rare honesty and a compelling strength of observation which involves the reader’. He wrote: ‘here is writing not afraid to be vulnerable, not trapped in literary artifice, not reticent about emotion, its hopes, its fears, its withdrawals and assertions, which we all share and which enrich our humanity. A memorable picture emerges of a contemporary woman, intelligent and able to feel deeply, who is not afraid to feel the incompleteness, the unfinished edges of human love’.
Fiery Waters: ‘is a generous and passionate book. The sensualist shines through: shrewd, empathic, intimate. Rowland celebrates the immediacy of experience, the poignancy of happiness. The poems are arranged almost seasonably and the natural world is an implacable metronome..’ - ‘.. the poems leave a sensation of warmth long after reading them’. Jennifer Harrison, Five Bells.
‘Rowland is a fluent, eloquent poet ... the sensually explicit lines skilfully manage their metaphor.. Her passionate political poems will give heart to many readers’. ‘There is ardour and brave candour in this celebratory stance’. Barry Hill, Poetry editor, The Weekend Australian, Books Extra, Review, March 30. 2002. ‘Both sensual and sensuous, it is concerned with the “real world”’. Poems have a ‘great personal intensity’. ‘She deals tellingly with a range of injustices around the world, always bringing out their human dimensions rather than simply wringing her hands. With ‘no obvious stylistic or literary or political allegiance.. a talented woman writing directly and courageously out of her own experiences.’ Geoff Page, winner of the Patrick White Literary Award 2002, review in Australian Book Review, March 2002.
Shadows at the gate: Irish poet Michael Coady : ‘These poems are organic outgrowths of a life encompassing both Ireland and Australia, love and loss, anchorage and dislocation, hurt and healing. While retaining artistic control, Robyn Rowland allows real feeling to inform her poetry, rather than playing safe with a fashionably detached ironic mode. Shadows at the Gate authentically sings of tenderness and courage in the face of ‘time’s corrosive kiss’.
‘Soaked in the richness of lived experience and its accompanying shadows..tightly constructed, thick with description and image’, Andrea Breen, Island 98, Spring 2004
Eileen Batersby wrote in The Irish Times after Robyn’s reading on Inis Oirr for Cúirt International Festival of Literature in Galway,: ‘Memory, anecdotal narrative and strong emotion shape Rowland’s strong, personal and well-crafted verse.’ Her reading was ‘honest and questioning’ and ‘Irish history filters through her story as told in appealing, unsentimental but humanly touching poems.’
Of Robyn Rowland’s work, her publisher Ron Pretty wrote: Rowland’s skill as a poet is to combine lilt with passion, musicality with social concern, clarity with depth. She has always had the ability to see the political in the personal, to see the world, not in a mustard seed, but in the space between two bodies, or the errant human cell. As well, she is a poet who does not stand still. There has been, in the writing since the previous book, a tightening of the line, a moving towards a greater conciseness, without, it should be stressed, any loss of the music. There is something European or perhaps Irish in her poetic consciousness: she handles passion and laughter, politics and loss with equal confidence. Her work is very sensual and encompasses a broad range from the political to love affairs that go astray, death and cancer’.
The Worchester Review described her work as dealing with ‘sensual, erotic and heterosexual themes ... in a startlingly honest style’. Of her readings Grainne Millar, Tyrone Guthrie Centre wrote; ‘inspirational and deeply moving reading’ and Michael Roche, Second Secretary Australian Embassy Dublin wrote: ‘Accessible, exquisite diction and moving expression’.
Other accomplishments
Robyn is an experienced reader and public speaker. Previous to 1996 when Robyn was diagnosed with breast cancer and left academic life, she was Professor Rowland, Head of the School of Social Inquiry and Director of the Australian Women’s Research Centre at Deakin University. Robyn has edited and refereed for a multitude of international journals. A well- known public critic of reproductive technology and genetic engineering for fifteen years, Robyn published Living Laboratories. Women and Reproductive Technology in 1992 (Pan MacMillan, Aust; Indiana University Press, USA; Limetree and Cedar, U.K.) In that capacity she addressed the House of Lords, Trinity College Dublin, the Quebec Government’s gathering on legislation in these areas, and various governments internationally and nationally used her work. She delivered over 100 public addresses or conference papers and conducted interviews and debates on television, on radio and in the print media. In 1996 Honours List she was made an Officer in the Order of Australia by the Governor General on behalf of the Australian Government for her contribution to women’s health and higher education.
PO Box 175, Torquay, Victoria, Australia 3228 bysea@bigpond.com |
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Poetry Biography
Deputy Chair, Board Australian Poetry Centre, 2007 - 2009