Poems for America

Back in 1994, when David Rowbotham released his New and Selected Poems, 1945-1993, a flurry of reviews appeared in the major newspapers and magazines remarking on how richly Rowbotham deserved more recognition as one of Australia’s major poets of the past century. But if he is the most major of our neglected poets, what is remarkable is that Rowbotham has continued to write sixty years on, in a confident and lucid voice that transcends single continents and cultures. Poems for America is certain to earn Rowbotham that elusive literary Oscar. Veteran Australian poet, author and journalist David Rowbotham was born at Toowoomba, Queensland, in 1924. He now lives in active retirement in Brisbane where he was the inaugural arts and literary editor of Brisbane’s The Courier-Mail. He was educated at Toowoomba East State, Toowoomba Grammar, and the Universities of Queensland and Sydney. He holds the Ford Memorial Medal for Poetry (University of Queensland), has won the Henry Lawson Prize (University of Sydney) and the Grace Leven Prize, as well as second prize for poetry in the New South Wales Captain Cook Bicentenary Celebrations Literary Competitions. He has a BA degree and is an AM in the Order of Australia. After service as a wireless operator with the RAAF in the South West Pacific, he worked as a journalist in Sydney and London, and has travelled widely, receiving recognition in the United States where he has resided, lectured and been published. His 20 books of verse and prose include a novel and a volume of short stories. He has a publishing history of 60 years, and was a contributor to the revival of poetry in Australia in the postwar 1940s. In 1989 he was awarded an Emeritus Fellowship by the Australia Council for his “contribution to the national heritage”.