‘Very few collections bring home so powerfully the vulnerability of individuals in the face of history’ writes Lisa Gorton of Robyn Rowland’s powerful poems recording the experiences of soldiers, nurses and doctors, women munitions workers, wives, mothers, composers, painters and poets during the Gallipoli War, 1915.
It began with the Battle of Çanakkale and the defeat of the British navy. The land battle was hand-to-hand killing, the physical closeness of its soldiers unmasking the depersonalisation of the propaganda of war.
Stories of Australian, Turkish and Irish men and women in these poems show the intimate nature of war; not from the perspective of victory but from the perspective of those caught up in war, who, whichever side they were on, lost. —Lisa Gorton
Both the English and Turkish languages face each other across the pages as the men faced each other across narrow spaces between the trenches. ‘In translating impeccably Dr Rowland’s poems into Turkish, Professor M. Ali Çelikel has commendably conveyed the epic depth and literary qualities embodied in the poems’. —Himmet Umunç
Importantly, the book finishes with a poem on women’s friendship 100 years after the war, and the healing nature of love.
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Robyn Rowland is an Australian-Irish poet regularly visiting Turkey. She has written twelve books, nine of poetry. Her work appears in national and international journals and in over 40 anthologies, including eight editions of Best Australian Poems. She has read in many countries including, Bosnia, Serbia, Austria, Turkey, Canada, India, and Portugal where she has been published. She was filmed reading for the National Poetry Archives, James Joyce Library UCD Ireland.
Dr Mehmet Ali Çelikel is Associate Professor at the Department of English Language and Literature, Pamukkale University in Denizli, Turkey. He writes on post-colonial and postmodern fiction and translates Robyn Rowland’s poetry.
