Robbie Coburn

Robbie Coburn is a contemporary Australian poet. Judith Beveridge wrote that Coburn’s work “is so raw yet so luminous and piercing to the point where the poetry is utterly transformative”.

Early life and education
Born in Melbourne in 1994, Robbie Coburn grew up on his family's farm in Woodstock, Victoria, the son of a horse trainer. As a child, his mother would read him the verse of Banjo Paterson.

He began writing poetry at the age of 14, inspired by the works of Edgar Allan Poe. He was also greatly influenced by Australian poets Les Murray and Robert Adamson, as well as Judith Beveridge, Michael Dransfield and Charles Buckmaster. As an 18-year-old, Coburn returned from schoolies early to attend a reading by Murray, and gave him a copy of his first chapbook Human Batteries.

Robert Adamson, whose work Coburn discovered as a teenager, was his idol and mentor, and one of his greatest influences.

He became interested in haiku in his youth after reading “In a Station of the Metro” by Ezra Pound, and is a lifelong admirer of the poet and critic’s work.

Other major influences include Sylvia Plath, Bob Dylan, Franz Wright, Arthur Rimbaud, Frank Stanford, Ovid, Dante, Antonin Artaud, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Larkin, and Sharon Olds.

Career
Coburn is the author of the poetry collections Ghost Poetry (Upswell Publishing, 2024), And I Could Not Have Hurt You (Kiddiepunk, 2023), The Other Flesh (UWA Publishing, 2019), and Rain Season (Picaro Press, 2013). He has also published a number of chapbooks.

His verse novel, The Foal in the Wire, will be published by Hachette Australia in 2025.

His first published poem appeared in anarchist poet Pi O's literary journal Unusual Work when he was 17 years old. His poems have appeared in Poetry, Meanjin, Island, Westerly, Quadrant, and elsewhere. His poems have also been published in anthologies, including Writing to the Wire (UWA Publishing, 2016) and To End All Wars (Puncher & Wattmann, 2018).

Additionally, Coburn’s haiku has been published widely, including in Modern Haiku, The Heron’s Nest, NOON: Journal of the Short Poem, tinywords, Frogpond (the journal of the Haiku Society of America), and Blithe Spirit (the journal of the British Haiku Society). His work was selected for inclusion in a hole in the light: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2018, edited by Jim Kacian.

Coburn has given featured readings at The Wheeler Centre and La Mama Poetica and has appeared as a guest at literary festivals such as the Sydney Writers' Festival, Canberra Writers Festival, Newcastle Writers Festival and Perth Poetry Festival.

He has also run poetry workshops for youth mental health organisation headspace.

In 2021, Coburn published "Home for the Rodeo", an essay detailing his struggles with alcoholism, depression, and self-harm, and his love of the sport of rodeo.

He released the album Womb, a collaboration with noise artist TVISB, in 2023. His debut album of spoken word recordings I Dreamed the Night was a Horse with its Eyes Shut was released in 2024. The album title is taken from a poem by Frank Stanford.

Critical response
Coburn’s poetry is known for its highly personal, sometimes confronting nature, as well as his use of evocative, visceral imagery relating to the human body, always executed using a carefully refined poetic craft. Judith Beveridge wrote that his poetry “is so much of the body but of the soul too which makes it remarkable”. Robert Adamson noted that Coburn’s poems “come from tough experiences, yet are created with a muscular craft that glows with alert intelligence”. Due to its openness in dealing with personal themes such as mental illness, trauma, addiction, self-harm and suicide, Coburn’s work has often been categorised as confessional poetry. Sarah Holland-Batt wrote that Coburn’s “raw and intimate poems are marked by a strong presence of voice: confessional, consolatory, despairing, and defiant” and that his poems “speak of impulses that are often repressed or left unsaid.”

His work is also known for using imagery related to his upbringing on his family’s farm, horses and rodeo. Les Wicks called Coburn “the best portraitist of Australian rural life since Brendan Ryan.

Personal life
Coburn suffers from severe depression, and has struggled with alcoholism and self-harm, topics frequently explored in his work.

Poetry

 * Verse Novels


 * Collections

Anthologies (contributor)

 * Under the Same Moon: Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology. Ed. Lyn Reeves, Vanessa Proctor, Rob Scott. (Forty South Publishing, 2023)
 * a hole in the light: The Red Moon Anthology of English-Language Haiku 2018. Ed. Jim Kacian. (Red Moon Press, 2019)
 * To End All Wars. Ed. Dael Allison, Anna Couani, Kit Kelen, Les Wicks. (Puncher & Wattmann, 2018)
 * Writing to the Wire. Ed. Dan Disney, Kit Kelen. (UWA Publishing, 2016)


 * List of poems
 * "Shock Lessons, a Paddock Scripture", Poetry, May 2016

Discography
Studio albums
 * I Dreamed the Night was a Horse with its Eyes Shut (2024)

Collaborative albums
 * Womb (collaboration with TVISB) (2023)