That Looks on Tempests

Barbie Robinson is a Canberra Australia-based arts advocate, artist and poet whose practice encompasses writing, photography, design, event management, radio presentation/production and arts marketing. That Looks on Tempests - Thoughts on the nature of love is her third solo book of poetry and the first to be published by For Pity Sake. The work is highly personal, created as part of Barbie’s ‘Gratitude Project’ after a life-saving stem cell transplant.

"People, Places and Paradoxes. 'That Looks on Tempests - Thoughts on the nature of love' is a sensitive, evocative collection. A wry interrogation of the ambiguity inherent in the poet’s embrace of a new home and the courage it takes to love, Barbie Robinson’s third book of poetry contains a playfulness to delight the reader along with sudden insights into the nature of relationships.

Here we delve into the richness of a migrant’s experience, the lands inhabited and the creatures, human and otherwise, who reside forever in her soul."

- Sara Dowse, author of As the Lonely Fly

PEOPLE

Conversations of a Marriage 14 – 15
And always trust your cape 16
The Men 17
Divorce 18
Adam’s Rib 19
Dunkirk 2012 20
A time before dancing 22
A passage to Canada 1952 23
The first apology to my mother 24
Another apology to my mother 25
Generations 26
The list 27
Every four hours 28 – 29

PLACE

Weereewa 34 – 35
Driving into Bungendore 36
Golden Hour 37
The Joys of Travel 38
Sydney Summers 40 – 41
Coming home 42
Canberra mid-winter 43

PARADOXES

The Angel of Auschwitz 48
Vincent 49
Ravens 50
Another View of Hardship 51
Bataclan – 13 November 2015 52
History Lesson 53
The kindness of strangers 54 –55
Aceh 23 May 2017 56
In the name of love 57
At the Traffic Lights 58
Reading in bed 59
Afterword – Sara Dowse 60
The final word 62