Rob Walker (poet)

Last updated

Rob Walker is a contemporary Australian poet and writer. His poetry has been published widely in magazines, journals, anthologies and online since the mid-1990s. [1] His work has been translated into Arabic, [2] Spanish and Dutch, [3] text-published in English in France [4] and India [5] and e-published on most continents. [1]

Contents

Biography

Born Robert John Walker on 26 June 1953, Rob Walker has lived in Adelaide or the Adelaide Hills most of his life. He attended Cowandilla Primary and Plympton High Schools and trained as a primary school teacher at Western Teachers College (later University of South Australia.) [6] He has worked as a primary school educator, particularly in the Performing Arts area. In addition to poetry he writes occasional book reviews, [7] articles, essays [8] and short fiction. He currently divides his time between Australia and Himeji, Japan.

Poetry

Walker’s work often relates to the natural world, children and occasionally political and social issues. He uses diverse genres and styles, often using the vernacular and humour to express complex issues in simple language. Consequently there is no consensus amongst poets or critics as to the value or intent of his work. “Rob Walker's poems concern themselves with injustice, beauty, memory, impressions, captivity and misplaced assistance” (Debra Zott, poet) [9]

“Some may find Walker's poetry to be straightforward, but I believe that this is a mirage effect as, while written with apparent simplicity and without engaging in sophisticated word play, there is a constant thread of preoccupation running from the local to the global. Some poems are marbled through with a contained distress or acrid criticism which hides in the form of humorous satire" (Susan Ballyn, University of Barcelona) [10]

“Walker touches on the full spectrum of human frailty.” (Magdalena Ball, poet, editor, broadcaster.) [11]

"Rob Walker combines sharp perception, compassion and humour to create crisp intersections of time and place. Airy shortcuts, sensuous imagery, and a warm sympathy combine in poems that range from insect life to human relationships, from landscape to love." (Jan Owen, Australian poet) [12]

“Walker finds a wide range of subjects variously eliciting his wit, concern, outrage or empathy. He achieves memorable poems through a combination of startling visual imagery and a dialogue with language itself.” (Graham Rowlands, poet, editor, Flinders University) [13]

“Whether he's focussing on the minute worlds of insects or big political themes, rob walker's poetry is witty, incisive and nicely attuned to the 'mouthfeel' of language. His black sense of humour is a bonus." Mike Ladd (poet, ABC broadcaster) [13]

He employs a wide variety of genres – text, audio/ video poems, music and spoken word performance poetry. He has had music composed for his work by – and recorded and performed live with – Zephyr Quartet [14] and Max-Mo. He makes his work available to Creative Commons websites where it has been frequently remixed by other artists. [15]

Bibliography

Sparrow In An Airport (NEW POETS TEN Friendly Street/Wakefield Press, 2005) ISBN   1-86254-670-3

Micromacro (Seaview Press, 2006) ISBN   978-1-74008-415-4

Friendly Street Poets THIRTY (Wakefield Press, 2006) ISBN   978-1-86254-702-5 (co-edited with Louise Nicholas)

Phobiaphobia (Picaro Press, 2007) ISBN   978-1-920957-35-3

Walker has also been published in Australian and international literary journals, magazines and websites and anthologies including Friendly Street Poets Annual Anthologies 2004–2011, Best Australian Poems (ed. Les Murray, Black Inc, 2005), Quadrant, Blue Dog, Blue Giraffe, Blast, 4W, Going Down Swinging, The Adelaide Review, New England Review, Famous Reporter, The Cortland Review, Mascara Literary Journal, Divan, Southern Ocean Review, Cordite Poetry Review, Australian Poetry, Text, LiNQ, The Compulsive Reader, Australian Reader. His audio poems and music have been broadcast on radio and released on CD. [16] Since 2006 his website has been archived by the National Library of Australia. [17]

Awards

• Inaugural Onkaparinga Poetry Unhinged Single Poet Collection Competition, 2006 (winner, for micromacro )

• 2007 Newcastle Poetry Prize (New Media) for moon: antipoem (with his son Matt Walker)

• 2009 Newcastle Poetry Prize (New Media) for bibliophobia (with his son Ben Walker)

• 2010 Newcastle Poetry Prize (New Media) as judge.

Related Research Articles

Dorothy Hewett Australian feminist poet, playwright and novelist

Dorothy Coade Hewett was a playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed through different literary styles: modernism, socialist realism, expressionism and avant garde. She was a member of the Australian Communist Party in the 1950s and 1960s, which informed her work during that period.

John Jefferson Bray, was an Australian lawyer, judge, academic, university administrator, Crown officer, and published poet.

Andrew McDonald Taylor is an Australian poet and academic, and a co-founder of Friendly Street Poets in Adelaide, South Australia.

Anna Couani Contemporary Australian poet and educator

Anna Couani is a contemporary Australian poet and visual artist.

Friendly Street Poets, often referred to as just Friendly Street, is a poetry reading group and publisher in Adelaide, South Australia, established in 1975.

Richard Hillman is an Australian poet.

Edwin Greenslade Murphy Poet, journalist from Western Australia

Edwin Greenslade Murphy was an Australian journalist and poet.

Michael Sharkey is an Australian poet, resident in Castlemaine in the goldfields region of Victoria.

Jenny Boult, also known as MML Bliss, was an Australian poet, playwright, and editor.

Timoshenko Aslanides was an Australian poet.

Australian Poetry is a national not-for-profit organisation representing Australian poets, based at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne. The organisation was created in 2011 by the amalgamation of Poets Union Inc., based in New South Wales, and the Australian Poetry Centre Inc. of Victoria.

Jennifer Compton is a New Zealand-born Australian poet and playwright.

Robert Harris was an Australian poet, who also wrote as Orson Rattray Der.

John Jenkins is an Australian poet, non-fiction author and editor. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of more than 20 books, mostly poetry and non-fiction. He has also collaborated widely with other artists and poets, including on various gallery installations and theatrical events. His papers are at special collections, Academy Library, University of NSW at ADFA.

Larry Philip Buttrose is an Australian writer, journalist and academic. He is the ghostwriter of the Saroo Brierley memoir A Long Way Home.

Luke Icarus Simon is an Australian author, poet, actor, playwright and screenplay writer.

Richard Tipping Australian poet and artist

Richard Kelly Tipping is an Australian poet and artist best known for his extensive practice in visual poetry and word art including artsigns, textual sculpture, subvertising graphics, and large-scale public artworks both permanent and temporary. Examples of his work are illustrated in the collections of many public galleries including The Art Gallery of New South Wales, and The British Museum.

Mark Tredinnick Australian poet, essayist and teacher (born 1962)

Mark Tredinnick is an Australian poet, essayist and teacher. Winner of the Montreal International Poetry Prize in 2011 and the Cardiff International Poetry Competition in 2012. He is the author of thirteen books, including four volumes of poetry ; The Blue Plateau;The Little Red Writing Book and Writing Well: the Essential Guide.

Stephen Kenneth Kelen, known as S. K. Kelen, is an Australian poet and educator. S. K. Kelen began publishing poetry in 1973, when he won a Poetry Australia contest for young poets and several of his poems were published in that journal.

Louise Oxley Australian poet

Louise Oxley is an Australian poet who "often uses nature as a vehicle to enter metaphors that examine a more emotional, inner view of the world".

References

  1. 1 2 http://sawriters.org.au/general/rob-walker [ dead link ]
  2. ↑ "صباح محسن جاسم - عذابات يحيى".
  3. ↑ "Vrijage met een Dame via een Advocaat: Zesde Gedicht: Eurostar Door Rob Walker". 15 April 2011.
  4. ↑ "Cercles book reviews Angel Bloomfield Walker Ballyn".
  5. ↑ http://tajmahalreview.com/taj10contributors.htm [ dead link ]
  6. ↑ "Rob Walker | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories".
  7. ↑ "Rob Walker Reviews Tony Page". 30 November 2004.
  8. ↑ "Famous Reporter # 33, Rob Walker".
  9. ↑ 'Review: Friendly Street: New Poets Ten by Libby Angel Robert J Bloomfield and Rob Walker' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), September 2005. Availability: <http://www.api-network.com/main/index.php?apply=reviews&webpage=api_reviews&flexedit=&flex_password=&menu_label=&menuID=homely&menubox=&Review=5106> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 18 August 2011].
  10. ↑ Susan Ballyn, (Universitat de Barcelona) in Cercles (Rouen University, France) http://www.cercles.com/review/r27/angel5.htm
  11. ↑ "Book Review: phobiaphobia by rob walker - Page 2 - Blogcritics Books". blogcritics.org. Archived from the original on 30 September 2012.
  12. ↑ "Welcome to Wordfire..." www.word-fire.com. Archived from the original on 9 July 2009.
  13. 1 2 https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20110715141200/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/74863/20110716-0012/www.robwalkerpoet.com/index3b72.html?page_id=3 http://nla.gov.au/nla.arc-74863 [accessed 19 August 2011]
  14. ↑ "ABC TV - Sunday Arts - Event Diary". www2b.abc.net.au. Archived from the original on 22 March 2012.
  15. ↑ "CcMixter - robwalkerpoet".
  16. ↑ "Rob Walker | AustLit: Discover Australian Stories".
  17. ↑ "Trove".
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.