Rowbotham was born in the Darling Downs of Queensland, in the city of Toowoomba. He served in the Second World War on the Pacific front, attended the University of Queensland, and worked as a journalist for many years. A friend and mentor to many other Australian writers, Rowbotham also maintained extensive international connections, travelling frequently to the United States. 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. In 2007 Rowbotham received the Patrick White Award; the presentation was made November 9, 2007, in Brisbane.

Bibliography

• 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)

External links

• David Rowbotham: A Chronicle
• Reviews of Poems for America

References