Rowan Donovan ( b. 1952 ) now resides permanently in Queensland, Australia.
He began writing at age fourteen keeping a diary. Forty two years later he is still
writing up his diary. He started performing his poetry at various venues around
Brisbane in 2001. In 2002 he was a founding member of SpeedPoets, a performance group with “an ongoing love affair between words, music and an everything under
two minutes philosophy.”
In 2004 Rowan became a Queensland Poetry Festival committee member, a position he still holds today.
In August 2005 Rowan was one of three judges for the statewide children’s poetry
competition, “Poetry on the Move.”
He has had poems published in zines, journals and anthologies including SOOB New Writing 2004, Small Packages #8 and his poem, Elgar’s Concerto was published in Five Bells (Vol.11 no 4).
In February 2007 he self published his first volume of twenty poems entitled “The Lateness of Goodnight – Poems of a Spoken Word Artiste” which can be purchased by emailing Rowan at rdono22@eq.edu.au
By day Rowan is employed by Education Queensland as a specialist primary school teacher of Japanese.
ELGAR’S CONCERTO
Why do I miss you
All these tight strung months
Of unplayed concertos
And sad sung symphonies
Lying at the bottom of
Forgotten drawers
Like
Packed away
In cardboard boxes
Turned in on themselves
And stacked on shelves
Left in the dark
Time and distance
A Berlin wall
Where not even refugees
Are taken prisoner
I feed on a diet
Of malnourished hope
And a postcard
Scribbled and sent
On the whim of a moment
That I can hold
Close to me
To hear the words
You wrote
And feel your heart beat
From half a million miles away
While I listen to Elgar’s concerto
Played on cello
By Jacqueline du Pre
CRASH and BURN
Crash and burn
Wasn’t even an option
When our wings fell off
Seared through to the bone
At the point of contention
You and me
Angels without wings
Lovers without reason
Free falling with grace
From heaven
Having flown too close
To the sum
Of all the angles
That kept us
In perfect alignment
Redefined the square
As a place
A space
Without walls
A garden in need of Eden
And in an act
Of self induced redemption
I kiss away your
Salt cried tears
With lips that belie my age
And promise you
Promise you
A softer landing
KITES
I have flown kites
On very long strings
Over oceans of blue
To far away lands
And all the while
Held onto things
That leave me
Like a snake in the grass
Smelling the air
With my tongue
Jobs half done
My praises
Never sung
Caught somewhere between
Myth and logic
I follow the string
At times
All tied up in knots
I’ve struggled to free myself
Least I become
Tongue-tied
And ask gods
To prove
Their existence
LOST for WORDS
Who was it said
Everything that belongs to the past
Seems to have fallen
Into the sea
Beware these stolen ideas of mine
In this mad month of March
While others choose
To bury their past
I sharpen mine
Like a barber’s clever wit
I’m not in the mood
For making love
I’m hell bent
On counting the collateral
From the damage I’ve caused
The havoc I’ve wrecked
There’s a storm
Of dustbowl proportions
Building in the back of my head
And I’ve ripped out the last page
From the book
I was reading
Devoured the printed word
There’s more
Left unsaid
Between the spaces
Of lines unread
Than a Zen monk would know
What to do with
I know I can’t compete
With bird songs from Paradise
Can’t complete the last act
Of a desperate man
Can’t find the words I’m looking for
I’m on my hands and knees
And I can’t find the words
I’m looking for
