Template:FOR Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Australian English David Harold Rowbotham Template:Post-nominals (27 August 1924 – 6 October 2010) was an Australian poet and journalist.
Early lifeEdit
Rowbotham was born in the Darling Downs of Queensland, in the city of Toowoomba.<ref>David Rowbotham Template:Webarchive (Brisbane Writers' Festival) Accessed: 30 January 2007.</ref> He attended Toowoomba Grammar School and studied at the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney.<ref name="ReferenceA">Australian Verse: An Illustrated Treasury, edited by Beatrice Davis, State Library of New South Wales Press, 1996</ref> He served in the Second World War on the Pacific front.
Literary careerEdit
Rowbotham worked as a journalist for the Toowoomba Chronicle and Brisbane Courier-Mail (1955–64).<ref name=apl>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He lectured in English at the University of Queensland (1965–1969) and became the literary critic of the Brisbane Courier-Mail (1969–1980), and its literary editor (1980–1987).<ref name="ReferenceA" />
Though lyrical in form, Rowbotham's poems are often concerned with history. After the publication of his Selected Poems by Penguin in 1994, covering a period of fifty years, Rowbotham entered a startling late period of productivity which culminated in the publication of the much-lauded Poems for America in 2002. In 2005 the Wagtail series from Picaro Press published a chapbook of Rowbotham's called The Brown Island.
Later lifeEdit
A friend and mentor to many other Australian writers, Rowbotham also maintained extensive international connections, travelling frequently to the United States.
He died on 6 October 2010.
Awards and recognitionEdit
Rowbotham was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) in 1991 in recognition of his service to literature.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
In 2007 Rowbotham received the Patrick White Award; the presentation was made 9 November 2007, in Brisbane.
BibliographyEdit
- Ploughman and Poet (1954)
- Inland (1958)
- All the Room (1964)
- Bungalow and Hurricane (1967)
- The Makers of the Ark (1970)
- The Pen of Feathers (1971)
- Maydays (1980)
- Selected Poems (1994)
- The Ebony Gates (1996)
- Poems for America (2002)
- The Brown Island (2005)
- The Cave in the Sky (2005)
- The Star of Engelmeer (2006)
- Rogue Moons (2007)
ReferencesEdit
External linksEdit
- David Rowbotham: A Chronicle
- Reviews of Poems for America
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