Robbie Coburn
| Robbie Coburn | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Robert Lee Coburn 25 June 1994 (age 21)  Melbourne, Victoria, |
| Residence | Melbourne |
| Nationality | Australian |
| Known for | Poetry |
| Website | http://www.robbiecoburn.com.au |
Robert Lee Coburn (born 25 June 1994) is a contemporary Australian poet.
He grew up on his family's farm just north of Melbourne's outer suburbs in the semi-rural locality of Woodstock, Victoria, which is a large focus of his poetry. He is known for his highly personal, sometimes confronting style of writing.
Poet Les Wicks has called him "the best portraitist of Australian rural life since Brendan Ryan".[1]
Biography
Coburn was born in Melbourne, and educated at Whittlesea Primary School and Assumption College, Kilmore. He briefly studied at La Trobe University before dropping out of his degree.
Coburn's first published poem 'Two Lies in Sequence' appeared in Pi O's literary journal Unusual Work when he was 17 years old[2] and he has since been published in many journals and magazines, including Poetry.
Coburn's work is largely drawn from personal experience, such as his struggles with depression, alcohol abuse, anorexia nervosa, and self-harm. He writes frequently about farm life, with predominant themes of greyhound racing and training, family, isolation and the emotional hardships of living in outer suburban Melbourne.[3] He writes primarily in free verse, using striking imagery and personal reflections to evoke the landscape and humanity's connection to it.
In answer to the question of why he writes poetry, Coburn has said "It simply isn’t a conscious decision I make to write poetry, but an impulsion that cannot be ignored. Poetry photographs parts of life and humanity that can’t be captured visually, at least in a literal sense. It dissects the hopelessness of being alive and makes it seem to develop meaning momentarily, even if it never actually does. If our most private and affecting inner thoughts and memories, the ones we keep silently at the backs of our minds, were given a voice, it would be poetry. That is what poetry is to me." [4]
Bibliography
Poetry collections
- Rain Season (Picaro Press, 2013)
Chapbooks and limited editions
- Human Batteries (Picaro Press, 2012)
- Before Bone and Viscera (Rochford Street Review, 2014)
- 5 Poems (Donnithorne Street Press, 2015)
- Mad Songs (Blank Rune Press, 2015)
See also
References
- ↑ , Rochford Street Review: A Journal of Australian and International Cultural Reviews, News and Criticism, 19 May 2014
- ↑ , AustLit: The Australian Literature Resource, 19 May 2014
- ↑ , The Wonderbook of Poetry: a conversation in text, image and music, 19 May 2014
- ↑ , Why Do You Write Poetry? - Robbie Coburn, 19 May 2014
External links
- Poetry Foundation profile
- Official website
- Profile in Overland by Peter Minter
- Review of "Rain Season" by Les Wicks in The Rochford Street Review
- Robbie Coburn's 'Suicide Country'
- 3 poems in foam:e