Dr Robyn Rowland AO Extended Poetry Bio
Honorary Fellow, Department of English Language and Literature, Marmara University, Istanbul, Turkey, 2022
Honorary Fellow, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne 2008 -2012
Curator, Australian Performances Clifden Arts Festival, 2010-2018;, Geelong Regional Libraries’ Poetry & Conversation series 2011 – 2013
Member, Australia Poetry Ltd, National Advisory Council 2010 – 2013
Deputy Chair, Board Australian Poetry Centre, 2007 – 2009
Board member Poetry Australia Foundation, 2004 -2006
Professor and Head of Social Inquiry until 1996, Deakin University.
Robyn Rowland, previously Professor of Social Inquiry at Deakin University, has 3 academic titles and 11 books of poetry. Seasons of doubt & burning. New & Selected Poems (Five Islands Press, 2010) represented 40 years of publishing. She has produced two cd’s of poetry, one with Irish harp: Silver Leaving. Poems & Harp, with Lynn Saoirse on Irish harp, 2010; Off the tongue, 2008 .
Seasons of doubt & burning. New & Selected Poems (Five Islands Press, 2010) represented 40 years of publishing. In her academic years, she also published sixty-five book chapters and journal articles, not listed below. Her poetry has appeared in over 40 anthologies and many international and national publications. She has published critical articles on poetry (solicited by Meanjin and Island), book reviews and journalism. Fuller details are below.
Her poetry has appeared in over 45 anthologies and many international and national publications. She has published critical articles on poetry, book reviews and journalism. Robyn read and taught regularly in Ireland for 40 years, and since 2009 in Türkiye. She has been invited to read her poetry in India, Portugal, Ireland, UK, USA, Greece, Austria, Bosnia, Serbia, Turkey and Italy, where, along with Canada, Spain and Japan, she has also been published, sometimes in translation. In Australia Robyn has read at most major festivals (see below).
Her work has been featured on many radio programs nationally and internationally. She has been filmed reading her work for the National Irish Poetry Reading Archive, James Joyce Library, University College Dublin. Her poetry has been featured often on Australian national radio programs, PoeticA, The Spirit of Things, Earsho, RTE Radio Ireland on TG4.. She has won or been shortlisted in many competitions, for the ACU Poetry Prize, the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, Lane Cove Poetry Prize, Society of Women Writers National Poetry Prize, Antipodes: Journal of Australian and New Zealand Literature International Poetry prize, Myslexia Poetry Prize, Society of Victorian Women Writers’ Poetry Prize, Grieve Poetry prize.
Robyn was awarded CAL travel grants for poetry festivals in India and Sarajevo, Bosnia; Arts Vic grants for promotion of her books in Ireland; and a major grant from the Literature Board of the Australia Council (2013) for New Work, Established poet, for work on her book based in Turkey. She has been awarded a number of residencies e.g at Varuna Writers House and in Venice by the Cini Foundation.
Poetry books
Steep Curve, 5Islands Press, Australia, 2024
Under This Saffron Sun – Safran Güneşin Altında, Turkish translation, Mehmet Ali Çelikel,
Knocknarone Press, Ireland, 2019
Mosaics from the Map, Doire Press, Ireland (2018)
This Intimate War Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915 – İçli Dışlı Bir Savaş: Gelibolu/Çanakkale 1915, Turkish translations by Mehmet Ali Çelikel, Five Islands Press, Australia; Bilge Kultur Sanat, Turkey, 2015; republished Spinifex Press, 2018
Line of Drift, Doire Press, Galway, Ireland, 2015
Seasons of doubt & burning. New & Selected Poems, Five Islands Press, Melbourne, 2010
This Road, Wagtail Series 63, Picaro Press, 2008
Silence & its tongues, Five Islands Press, 2006 (Reprinted 2008, 2009)
Shadows at the Gate, Five Islands Press, Wollongong, 2004 (Reprinted 2009)
Fiery Waters, Five Islands Press, Wollongong, 2001
Perverse Serenity, Heinemann, Melb,1990; (Reprinted by Spinifex Press, Melbourne. 1992)
Filigree in Blood, Longman Cheshire Modern Poets, Melb 1982.
Poetry CDs:
Off the tongue, 2008
Silver Leaving. Poems & Harp, with Lynn Saoirse on Irish harp, 2010
Poems in journals: a selection
Internationally: e.g Malahat Review (print and online) (Canada), Jones av (Canada), Antipodes: A Global Journal of Australian/New Zealand Literature (USA); Agenda Poetry (UK), Acumen (UK), Caja de resistencia. Revista de poesía crítica (Spain),
Piedra del molino. Revista de Poesia, no. 14, Primavera 2011, (Spain); Zeitschrift fur Australienstudien, issue 24/2010, in Galerna. Revista Internacional de Literatura, Spanish Language Journal, Monclair University (US), Poetry Ireland (Ireland), The Shop (Ireland), Cafe Review (USA), Zeitschrift fuer Australienstudien (Austria), Motrišta (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Worchester Review (USA), Yomimono (Japan), The Other Voices International Project (USA online), Knjizevne Novine (Literary News, Serbia); MindFire (e-zine, USA), & in New Zealand – Landfall , Climate, Pacific (Moana) Quarterly, Nexus, Comment, Pilgrims , The New Zealand Listener, Islands.
Australia: a selection e.g Meanjin, Australian Poetry Journal, Cordite (online, bi-lingual), Blue Dog: Australian Poetry, Island, Southerly, Axon (online), Arena, Divan (online), Poetry Australia, Quadrant, Eureka Street, Overland, Communion (online), Social Alternatives, The Tasmanian Review, Aspect, Westerly, Luna, Bulletin Literary Supplement, Syllable, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age newspaper, The Australian newspaper Weekend Review, Canberra Times, Táin, Salt-Lick Quarterly
Invited papers on poetry – a selection
‘Does poetry matter to people’ & ‘Tagore: his relevance today’ at 6th World Poetry Festival, Kolkata, India, 2012.
Melbourne Writers Week Panel ‘ Great Speeches & the Art of Poetry’, September, 2011
‘Sweet words: creating poetry with heart’, University of Vienna, Austria, 2010
‘Remnants of belonging: after colonisation and immigration – yearning. A poet’s story’, University of Graz, Austria, 2010
‘Broken traditions, broken time: women poets and the politics of intimacy’, University of Klagenfurt, Austria, 2010
‘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 & archaeology’, Poetry & the Trace Conference, Monash University, 2008;
‘Belonging and Identity. What the Irish have woven into us’, Irish Spaces: homeland and diaspora, Melbourne University 2004;
‘Passion of poetry’, Norfolk Island Writers & Readers Festival, 2006
‘Hot words and Sweet. Writing from life’, Tasmanian Poetry Festival, 2004
‘Belonging and Indigenous culture’, Ngara. Living in this place now, Fourth Australian Poetry Festival, 2004
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 by Robyn Rowland: a selection
The Guided Eye Robyn Rowland reviews This Shuttered Eye by Rose Lucas, Plumwood Mountain Journal, Australian and international journal of ecopoetry and ecopoetics, November 2022
Grappling with science and faith: Dr Robyn Rowland reviews ‘Dancing with Stephen Hawking’ by John Foulcher, Rochford Street Review, September 19, 2022
I Will Not Bear You Sons by Usha Akella, Spinifex Press 2021, virtual launch speech, 23 March 2021.
Night Train by Anthony Lynch, Cordite, 2012
Agnostic skies by Geoff Page, Blue Dog. Australian Poetry, Vol 6, 11, 2007
The Wings of Angels. A Memoir of Madness by Sandy Jeffs, Blue Dog. Australian Poetry ,Vol 4 (9), 2006
Nomadic by Judy Johnson, in Blue Dog. Australian Poetry, vol 3,6, 2004
Fiction review:
The Lake Woman, Alan Gould, Aracdia 2009; The Umbrella Club, David Brooks, UQP 2009. Island, 22, 2010
Anthologised:
Wingspan: a Festschrift for Robert Adamson, Ed. Judith Beveridge, Puncher & Wattman, 2026.
Belonging, 2025 ACU Poetry prize, Sydney 2025
Greive, Vol 12, Hunter Writers’ Centre, Newcastle, 2025
Sparx, Issue 10, Anthology Victorai Women Writers Prize, 2025
Ink. Centenary Edition 2025, Society of Women Writers NSW Inc, 2025
This Gift, This Poem, eds. Jean Kent, David Musgrave, Carolyn Rickett &Jen Webb (Puncher and Wattman, Sydney, 2022)
Quicksilver Water – Oasis Women Poets, (Hobart, 2022)
Lane Cove Literary Awards 2021: An Anthology, ed. Jennifer Bice, Sydney, 2021
To End All Wars, Dael Allison, Anna Couani, Kit Kelen and Les Wick Eds), Puncher and Wattmann, 2018
The Intimacy of Strangers (eds) Philip Porter, Andy Kissane (Pret a Porter, 2018)
The Best Australian Poems 2016, ed. Sarah Holland-Batt, (Black Inc. 2016)
Contemporary Australian Poetry, eds Martin Langford, Judith Beveridge, Judy Johnson, David Musgrave (Puncher & Wattman, Sydney 2016)
The Best Australian Poems 2015, ed. Geoff Page, (Black Ink. Melb, 2015)
Falling and flying : poems on ageing, eds Judith Beveridge, Susan Ogle (N.S.W. Brandl & Schlesinger, 2015)
Prayers of a Secular World, eds. Jordie Albiston & Kevin Brophy, (Inkermann and Blunt, Melbourne 2015))
Dazzled. The VC’s Poetry Prize Anthology, University of Canberra, 2014
Australian Poetry Anthology 2014, ed, Lucy Dougan and Martin Langford, Melbourne.
The Best Australian Poems 2014, ed. Geoff Page, (Black Ink. Melb, 2014)
The Best Australian Poems 2013, ed. Lisa Gorton, (Black Ink. Melb 2013)
Australia Love poems, 2013 (Inkerman and Blunt, Melb, 2013)
I Live in Michael Hartnett James Lawlor (ed) (Revival Press, Ireland 2013)
Clifden 35: Clifden Anthology. ed Brendan Flynn, ( Ireland 2012)
Being Human, ed. Neil Astley, (Bloodaxe Books, UK, 2011)
A Book of Moments, John Quinn, Veritas, Dublin, 2011.
Everyday Splendour, ed Janette Fernando, Poetica Christi Press, Melbourne, 2011
Writing 4All. The Best of 2010. ed Fred Johnstone, Dublin, Ireland, 2011
The Best Ausrtalian Poems 2010, ed Robert Adamson (Black Inc, Schwartz Aust);
The Best Australian Poems 2009, ed Robert Adamson (Black Inc, Schwartz Aust);
Motherlode: Australian Women’s Poetry 1986-2008, eds Jennifer Harrison and Kate Waterhouse, Puncher & Wattman Pty Ltd , Sydney, 2009
Literary Creatures, ed. Rafaella Torenson, 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);
All Travellers We. Poems for Shelton Lea, Eaglemont Press, Melb. 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, 2007.
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)
Radically Speaking, eds. D Bell and R Klein (Spinifex Press, 1996)
Moments of Desire, eds. 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 40 years including in Australia at The Adelaide Arts Festival; Melbourne Writers Week; The Australian Poetry Festival (Sydney);Tasmanian Poetry 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.
In Turkey at conferences for BAKEA and IDEA and in Izmir, Denizli, Malatya, Canakkale, Ankara and for Anzac Day in Turkey at Gallipoli at the VIP breakfast for VIP’s, Heads of State and Princes Charles and Harry, most of whom received the book as a gift from the Australian Embassy.
Turkish-Australian Culture Centre, Canakkle, Turkey; World poetry festival, Kolkata, India, 2012; Sarajevo Poetry Days (2010); Siir Beyoglu, Istanbul 2009; Belgrade International Writers Meeting 2009; Universities of Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt(2010); University of Coimbra, Portugal; The Australian Arts and Culture Festival 1999, Dublin (where her third book Fiery Waters was launched by the Australian Ambassador); The Birmingham Arts Festival U.K.; Cambridge University; Trinity College Dublin; Cúirt. International Festival of Literature, Galway; Éigse Michael Hartnett; 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’Bheal, Cork; Cuirt na Ban University College Dublin; University of Coimbra, Portugal; Summer Institute, Lesvos, Greece. Austrian Universities in Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt.
In 2000 she was 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.
Poetry Judge:
Byron Bay Festival Poetry Prize, 2011; 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:
Writing Spirit Award, Ireland 2011, winner; The Judith Wright Prize 2007 for Silence & its tongues, shortlisted; Poetica Christi 2009, winner; Jean Stone Poetry Prize, Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW, 2006, winner; 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; Catalpa Poetry Prize 2002 (Australian Irish Heritage Association), winner, and for the Catalpa Writers Prize 2002 for best of all fiction, essay and poetry; W. B Yeats Poetry Prize 2002 (for Australia and New Zealand), commended; John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (Fellowship of Australian Writers), second; Max Harris Literary Awards, commended; Canning Literary Award, WA, winner.
Critical response:
Under this Saffron Sun /Safran Güneşin Altında. Knocknarone Press, 2019; bi-lingual, Turkish translations Mehmet Ali Çelikel
Mosaics from the Map (2018)
Line of Drift (2015):
‘Line of Drift’ is a high water mark in Robyn Rowland’s writing and for poetry in general. Her dual identity lends ‘Line of Drift’ a unique perspective in modern poetry; she combines the best of Irish and Australian sensibilities. The lush passion of this book’s language is balanced by a wry, at times almost laconic view of the world. Every experience, from the grand to the mundane, from the personal to the political, is taut with vividness and energy. These poems are generous and genuinely moving, whether they depict the people or the places that she travels restlessly among and between.’ John Foulcher
In Rowland’s Irish landscape and/or weather poems particularly there is a lyrical density proceeding from both love and a deep knowledge… Rowland is now an Irish poet as much as she is an Australian one. ‘Line of Drift’ is a rich and accomplished book.
Geoff Page, The Australian, Feb 2016
This Intimate War Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915 – İçli Dışlı Bir Savaş: Gelibolu/Çanakkale 1915 (2015):
These poems draw on works of history and private testimonial. They are what this age needs: poems about war which do not glorify war; poems which, for all their considerable rhetorical power, nowhere distance themselves from pain, brutality and callous error. These poems are immediate and unwavering; they are also deeply thoughtful. In them, Robyn Rowland considers war from what were enemy positions; also, from the perspective of mothers and factory workers. Very few collections bring home so powerfully the vulnerability of individuals in the face of history. This collection certainly takes its place among Robyn Rowland’s best work. It is a courageous achievement. Dr Lisa Gorton, Poetry editor, Australian Book Review
Seasons of doubt & burning: New & Selected poems (2010)
These poems from almost forty years of publication show growth, from open simplicity to a rich, resonant maturity. Their hallmark is deep honesty and emotional accessibility.
Robyn Rowland draws her images from deep old places and from the room you are in right now, curtains unable to stop the radiance from spilling in. Her poems are richly wrought, sensuous, full of passion and restraint. They’re luminous and earthy at the same time and open the reader’s ear to hear the silence of the lost. In these difficult times, she’s the poet I’m looking for: ‘an angel she could be, or hope in flight’. Lorna Crozier, Canada
In this passionate volume., Robyn Rowland’s sensuous imagery is crafted by a fine intellect; the music of her lines vibrates in the memory. Poems from earlier books gather momentum leading to a generous selection of brilliant new work. These lyrical poems are crafted in various forms and trace a journey where love is cherished along the way to possible celebration. The intensity of feeling evoked in the profound love poems makes reading this book a joy. Robert Adamson, Australia
Silence & its tongues (2006):
‘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.
Shadows at the gate (2004):
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
Fiery Waters (2001):
‘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.
Perverse Serenity (1990/1992):
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’.
Filigree in Blood (1982) :
was ‘powerful and commanding’, ‘with that degree of integrity which makes one pay attention’.
Of Robyn Rowland’s work, her publisher (then) 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 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’.
BBC Actor John Nettles who recorded poet Sir John Betjeman, said on Connemara radio last year after Clifden Arts Week, that he comes each year to hear Robyn read and named her as’ among the first rank of poets’, impressed ‘by her use of language, control of verse and wonderful delivery’. Her accent, he said, ‘gives an added piquancy to her delivery’ and the poetry is ‘extraordinarily moving, wonderfully insightful’ with ‘a control of language I haven’t come across since, well, TS Eliot. Like Dylan Thomas and Betjeman, you have to hear her yourself. She is the voice.’
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 the 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.
Facebook: Robyn Rowland. www.robynrowland.com
Phone + 61 (0)418 173379 Email: bysea@bigpond.com Irish mobile + 353 (0)87 924 3814