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In partnership with Warrigal and in celebration of Seniors Festival 2025, Shellharbour City Libraries is excited to present Poet, Companion and Carer Robyn Rowland AO.
Speaking on her newest piece of work Steep Curve, join us in hearing from poet Robyn Rowland on her experience as a daughter, companion and carer for her father, and Warrigal founder, Norm Rowland.
When her father, Norm Rowland OAM, is almost 100, Robyn returns home to Australia from Ireland. Initially his companion, then carer during Covid, she lives with him in the house he built 65 years before. Their relationship grows through physical and emotional challenges, anger, frustration, grief and love.
Poems for Norm from previous years are also interwoven here. Heartbreaking and tender, a book created with love and skill: this is the poetic narrative of their shared journey.
Robyn Rowland, an Australian-Irish citizen, has been living between Ireland and Australia for over 30 years, and working, teaching and reading in Turkey since 2009. From December 2019 until late 2022 she lived back in Australia, caring for her father, who died, aged 102. She has eleven poetry books (Australia, Ireland and Turkey), including Mosaics From The Map (Doire, Ireland 2018) and two bilingual, Turkish translations, Mehmet Ali Çelikel: Under This Saffron Sun—Safran Güneşin Altında (Knocknarone, Ireland 2019) and This Intimate War Gallipoli/Çanakkale 1915—İçli Dışlı Bir Savaş: Gelibolu/Çanakkale 1915 (Five Islands Press, Australia and Bilge Kültür Sanat, Türkiye, 2015. Repub. Spinifex, 2018)).
She has been awarded Australia Council and Copyright Agency grants, and various writing residencies. Robyn has won or been listed for many prizes e.g shortlisted for the ACU Poetry Prize, Newcastle Poetry Prize, Peter Porter Poetry Prize, Lane Cove Poetry Prize, Society of Women Writers National Poetry Prize, Antipodes: Journal of Australian and New Zealand Literature International Poetry prize, Liquid Amber Poetry Prize.
Robyn has published multiple book reviews, journals articles, book chapters on literature and poetry. Her poetry appears in national/international journals in nine countries, fifty anthologies, and eight editions of Best Australian Poems. She has read at major literary festivals in India, Portugal, Ireland, UK, USA, Greece, Austria, Bosnia, Serbia, Turkey and Italy, and is published in translation in a number of these. She is filmed reading for the National Irish Poetry Reading Archive, James Joyce Library, UCD, on YouTube.
What should I bring?:
Tea, coffee and biscuits available upon entry to the event.
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Shellharbour City Libraries partnered with Warrigal Care to deliver Bee Connected, an intergenerational program aimed at forming meaningful connections between young people and seniors in the community through songs, games, reading, and crafts.
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Shellharbour City Libraries partnered with Illawarra Legal Centre to bring free community talks across our branches discussing a range of legal topics and how people can access help and resources as a part of the Libraries Law Week celebration.
Shellharbour City Libraries partners with HARS to deliver the Tall Tales program. This program aims to make connections with local social, hobby and information organisations who appeal to male audiences and bring them into our library program space.
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Shellharbour City Libraries partnered with Warrigal Care to deliver Bee Connected, an intergenerational program aimed at forming meaningful connections between young people and seniors in the community through songs, games, reading and crafts.
Shellharbour City Libraries partners with the William Campbell Foundation to deliver the Independent Living Skills Program. This program involves teaching foster children integral health and wellbeing skills and knowledge. Additionally, the City Library hosts WCF’s fortnightly Homework Club.
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Shellharbour City Libraries partners with Frasers Property Australia to deliver Toddler Tales, a weekly childhood reading program, at The Waterfront Shell Cove. The libraries have also partnered with Frasers Property Australia to deliver a term of Tech Savvy Seniors at Shell Cove.
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