Photo by Mayu Kanamori www.mayu.com.au
Adrian Robinson was born in 1963 in the UK. He immigrated to Australia with his family in 1970. He grew up in the northern suburbs of Adelaide and trained as a teacher at the Salisbury campus of the SACAE.
He has published poetry and travel writing in a number of journals and newspapers including the Friendly St Anthologies, The Weekend Australian and Blue Dog. His poem ‘the invention of barbed wire’ was read on Radio National’s Poetica.
He lived for many years in the South Australian outback but gave up the bush to move to Sydney in 2004. In 2005 three of his poems were set to music by the Australian composer Thomas Fitzgerald. This work was then performed by the poet and composer at the Peggy Glanville Hicks Composers House in Paddington, Sydney.
He is currently completing an MA in Creative Writing at Sydney University working with the renowned poet Judith Beveridge. He hopes to complete and publish a first volume in the not too distant future. He still works as a teacher.
Foetal
for Julie
an intermittant fan
chops the air
and the light
you’re foetal
at the edge
of sleep
distanced
from this night
of the senses
even the leaves
are quiet
their longing will not
go unnoticed
From Friendly Street No. 26
Exposing the threads
‘To find my home in one sentence . . . as if hammered in metal.’
Czeslaw Milosz
The poets declare
their superiority
like cats
preening themselves
on the new philosophy
but what’s the use of a poetry that
goes straight for the intellect
bypassing the heart?
far better to have
the moment captured
in the fragile net
using only the words
that matter
exposing the threads
spare like zen.
From Friendly Street No. 28
Sunday afternoon, Ernabella
A hawk
hovers between the clouds
wings beating
it has no fear of heights
suspended on an invisible cord
it pounces
dives down
to catch its prey
infallible
it cannot lose
this game of life
the moment of truth
the clouds move across the sky
the hawk hovers
in space once more
waiting for the spring to reload.
From Friendly Street No. 30