the Wounds of Faith

Michael Robinson is the winner of the 2009 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and the 2023 Tom Collins Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Tom Collins Poetry Prize in 2007.

"An x-ray poet, looking beneath and beyond appearance to the reality...Powerful and disturbing...Yet atonement is here as well...This is clarion call poetry, with all its evocative and gritty language." 

- Ian Keast, Studio.

"Combines serious social concern with keen perception of both the beauty and the ugliness of the physical world, all presented in a masterfully controlled formal context." 

- Sarah Day and Tim Thorne, Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. 

"A well-crafted, tactile poem, that gallops with ''the tides of conflict ebb and roar''; ''And every local skirmish has its long / Significance in legends of the deep''; it speaks of ''The ruthless sunlight''; ... ''the river''s ripples with fragile fire.'' - Pain is felt throughout this poem until it reaches a surprising, poignant end." 

- Rose Van Son, Tom Collins Poetry Prize.

"Spoke for generations...finely built, full of pathos." 

- Peter Bibby, Tom Collins Poetry Prize. 

The Wounds of Faith is Michael Robinson''s third collection of poetry. His previous books are The Tiger in the Vineyard (2015) and The Music of the Streets (2017). A special issue of Studio journal devoted to his work, The Quiet Fire, was published in 2023.