Writing Workshop with Dr. Robyn Rowland AO (c)
Saturday September 11th 2010, 10 – 4.00 (with a break for lunch)
At The Limerick Writers’ Centre, 12 barrington St., Limerick. Tel 087 2996409
This structured workshop is appropriate for, and has been successfully conducted with, established and early writers; poets and prose writers.
Part 1. Sweet Words: Valuing the Particular.
It is often difficult to find a way into the poem or prose we want to write and to bring to it a sense of the immediate. Beginning in the particular, we can watch an organic growth occur, gaining nurture from colour, scent, sound, taste and touch. In these particulars lie the story, the connection ready to unfold in your writing. This session will help you to uncover it, to shape it, with the aim of gaining immediacy in your work.
Part 2. River and ocean; tear and breath. Great and small; water in flood and famine.
From the smallest droplet to the greatest ocean, water is the building block of life. Inside us – bodies made primarily of water – tears release emotion, water ensures survival. As an image, it flows through the great poetry of Buddhism, the Bible and the poetry of those who connect inner life with nature. This workshop takes the elemental nature of water – its practical and mythical significance – and encourages its various representations in our work.
Each participant is given notes to keep relating to the topic for each part of the workshop, as well as copies of Robyn’s or other poems which exemplify themes. Each part of the workshop involves a talk, a guided meditative moment encouraging participants to attend to the nature of their piece of writing, followed by writing towards the topic. At the end of each part, Robyn will give feedback for each participant in terms of the aim of the workshop
Cost: 35 euros, (30 concession). Limited numbers. Bookings essential please by Sept 6th, as Robyn is traveling to do the workshop and for the preparation of materials
To book contact Dominic @ limerickwriterscentre@gmail.com
Dr Robyn Rowland AO has published ten books. Her work has been awarded a number of prizes. Silence & its tongues (2006) was shortlisted for the 2007 ACT Judith Wright Poetry Prize. Seasons of doubt & burning: New & Selected Poems is just published. Third generation Irish-Australian, Robyn has been reading and teaching in Ireland for 28 years, where she lives part-time in Connemara. She has read her poetry in Portugal, Ireland, the UK, the USA, Greece, Austria, Bosnia, Serbia, Turkey and Italy, where, along with Canada and Japan, she has also been published. She has read at many Irish festivals including: Cúirt International Festival of Literature, Listowel Writers Week, Scriobh, Éigse Michael Hartnett, Clifden Arts Week, and Strokestown International Poetry Festival. Her poetry has been featured often on Australian national radio programs PoeticA and The Spirit of Things. Robyn is known for her moving readings, available on her CDs, Off the tongue and Silver Leaving – Poems & Harp.
Robyn, an Honorary Fellow, School of Culture and Communication, University of Melbourne, was Deputy Chair of the Board, Australian Poetry Centre (2007-2008), and Professor of Social Inquiry and Women’s Studies at Deakin University, retiring in 1996 with breast cancer and burnout. She was made an Officer in the Order of Australia for her contribution to higher education and women’s health in 1996.
‘… settings range from Australian to Ireland, but the truer landscape is the human heart, scarred but resilient … Rowland’s lessons, transmitted through rich poetic language, can be heard by anyone willing to listen with both the head and the heart.’
Silence & its tongues: Michael C. Kuhne. Antipodes: A North American Journal of Australian literature.
‘While retaining artistic control, Robyn Rowland allows real feeling to inform her poetry, rather than playing safe with a fashionably detached ironic mode. Shadows at the Gate authentically sings of tenderness and courage in the face of ‘time’s corrosive kiss’. Michael Coady
Limerick Writers' Centre 