Colleen Z Burke – January 31 2021

Colleen is an award-winning poet, biographer and author. She left school at 15, worked as a shorthand typist and became interested in the politics of social justice and feminism in the 1960s. Through her interest in poetry, literature and folk music, she formed a relationship with her future husband, folk singer and musician, Declan Affley. Colleen’s writing is represented in several anthologies including Wee Girls – women writing from an Irish perspective and Open Boat Barbed Wire Sky, an anthology of poems about refugees. She co-edited The Turning Wave – Poems and Songs of Irish Australia with Vincent Woods and has written two biographies, Doherty’s Corner: the life and work of Australian poet M.E.J. Pitt and My World Alight: the life and work of Amy Hall. Colleen’s other poetry books include Go Down Singing, Wildlife in Newtown, Home Brewed and Lethal: New and Selected Poems, Pirouetting on a Precipice, and Fermenting. She has received three Australia Council Literature Board grants, two Varuna Writing Fellowships and a NSW Ministry for the Arts Writers’ Fellowship. Colleen has extensive experience as a facilitator of poetry and creative writing workshops in adult education and the community and has been a Writer-in-the Community and Workplace. Her two memoirs are The Waves Turn: a memoir and The Human Heart is a Bold Traveller.

Sculpting a landscape
Feakle Press, 2019; ISBN 9780994280121
Sculpting a landscape is Colleen Z Burke’s 12th collection of poems and is warmly welcomed for its wisdom, wit and generosity of spirit. These finely crafted poems catch our attention with their deep sensitivity to the joys and griefs of human existence. There are poems where Colleen offers heart-rending witness to the courage of people who struggle against poverty, cruelty and injustice. There are poems where the mind finds solace and wonder in often startling encounters with the rich beauty of the world, from the mountains and country town to the tucked-away corners of the inner-city. Colleen’s work celebrates the power of poetry to open our minds and deepen our connections with one another.

Splicing air
Feakle Press, 2013; ISBN 9780646590783
The poems in Splicing air, the 11th poetry book by Colleen Z Burke, offers many treasures. There are creative meditations on diverse landscapes – mountains, islands, inner cities, as well as perceptive and witty insights into what it means to be alive and the joys and wonder of children, grandchildren, corroboree frogs and other threatened species. There are fascinating and richly researched poetic narratives on historical themes – from Australia’s Aboriginal history to the story of a fossil hunter in the early to mid-1880s, Mary Anning. It is a book to read, relish and re-read.