Poet Profile

Cynthia Rowe

Cynthia Rowe, graduate of Melbourne University, has taught secondary and tertiary French and English in both Victoria and New South Wales. She has spent time in France and the French Territories and was awarded a Diplôme Approfondi de Langue Française by the French Ministry of Education. She is a Writing Fellow of the Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW. She is a novelist, short story writer and poet whose work has been published in Australia and overseas. She has been broadcast on National Community Radio. Her play ‘Not the Vice-Chancellor’ was performed in the Sydney Short and Sweet Festival 2008. She is a member of Red Dragonflies haiku group which workshops Japanese genre poetry. She is Immediate Past President: Eastern Suburbs Region Fellowship of Australian Writers NSW; Editor: Haiku Xpressions, and President: Australian Haiku Society.

Awards and Other Honors: Highly Commended, IHS International Haiku Competition (2009); Runner-up, 4th HPR conference kukai Edogawa Commemorative Gardens, Gosford (2009); 3rd Prize, WA Poets Creatrix Haiku prize (2010); Commended haibun, Yellow Moon (2006); haiku sequence Highly Commended, FAW Macarthur Region Literary Competition (2006); Haibun First Prize, Manly Peninsula Regional FAW (2007); Special Mention Haiku, The Heron’s Nest Volume 10 (2008); tanka Commended, The 2nd Kokako International Tanka Competition (2009); haibun Highly Commended, FreeXpresSion Literary Competition (2007); haiku Commended, FreeXpresSion Literary Competition (2009); tanka selected as Editor’s Choice moonset (2010); First Prize, Polish International Haiku Competition (2011); First Prize, 13th Annual Paper Wasp Jack Stamm Haiku Award (2011); First Prize City of Perth Library Haiku Competition (2012); Top Prize 66th Matsuo Bashō Festival Haiku Contest (2012); First Place, eighth edition European Quarterly Kukai (2014); Grand Prize: First Place, World Haiku Contest (2015); Second Place, European Quarterly Kukai #15 (Autumn, 2016); Second Place, Katikati Pathway Haiku Contest (2016); First Prize, The Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards (2016).

Books Published: Our Hollow Sofa (Parker Pattinson, 2004); Ants in My Dreadlocks [awarded in the Society of Women Writers NSW 2007 Biennial Book Awards] (Zeus Publications, 2005); Stinger in a Sugar Jar (Zeus Publications, 2007); Couscous Threads [runner-up in the Society of Women Writers NSW Biennial Book Awards 2009] (Zeus Publications, 2008); poetry collection Driftwood (Ginninderra Press, 2010); Bad Grass [Second Prize Society of Women Writers NSW Biennial Book Awards 2011] (Zeus Publications, 2009); My French Barrette (Zeus Publications, 2012); Pennyweight Flat (Amazon, 2013); Floating Nest haiku/senryu chapbook (Rebus Press, 2014) [First Prize, The Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards (2016)]; Stone Circles [haibun eChapbook] (Snapshot Press, 2017) [http://www.snapshotpress.co.uk/ebooks.htm].

spring equinox
two pines leaning
into each other

wind in the pine
wind in my hair – the secrets
between us

tourist group –
the eucalypt leans away
from the path

sand bar
the seagull soars over
swaying kites

earth hour...
threading beads
by moonlight

autumn equinox
a crow on the wire
reverses its grip

Credits: "spring equinox" - Highly Commended, IHS International Haiku Competition (2009); Shamrock Haiku Journal 12 (2009); "tourist group" - moonset (spring/summer 2010); "earth hour" – Third Prize, WA Poets Creatrix Haiku prize (2010); Creatrix 10 (2010); "wind in the pine" - Notes From the Gean 1:4 (2010); "sand bar" - Chrysanthemum 7 (2010); "autumn equinox" - Special Mention Haiku, The Heron’s Nest X:4 (2008); Wind over Water [an anthology of haiku and tanka, 4th Pacific Rim Haiku Conference] (2009).