Publications

The Human Heart is a Bold Traveller
Colleen Z Burke's Second Memoir was launched in Sydney in
September 2017 celebrated with a concert at the Gaelic Club.







The Waves Turn: a memoir
Colleen Z Burke

Poet and author Colleen Z Burke's memoir takes us into the post-World War 11 decades of the 20th century and a working class, Irish Catholic background. set against Bondi. the sea. At the time strict societal, religious and family prohibitions were particularly onerous for women. To escape a problematic childhood, Colleen immersed herself in books and stories of lives and worlds remote from her own. Leaving school at 15. Colleen worked as a shorthand typist in the public service but, wanting something different, questioned everything as she pursued education. informal and formal. Colleen's engrossing memoir explores the stimulating yet confronting era of the 1960s. During this period she became intrigued by a broader political sphere. poetry. literature and folk music which expressed the frustration of the young against injustice, racism. easy popular sentiment, commercialised American music and. of course, the Vietnam War. Feminism leavened with socialism made sense of her contradictory world. In Sydney. during these turbulent, heady times, Colleen met and formed a relationship with her future husband, folk singer and musician, Declan Affley. They lived in Melbourne for several years before travelling through Ireland. England and Wales. Author of eleven much loved hooks of poetry, Colleen has woven into her memoir a selection of her poems that highlight challenging and quirky aspects of her life as she developed her distinctive poetic voice. Importantly, The Waves Turn pays tribute to all those who have gone before and the many people who contributed to, or shared a part of Colleen's thought-provoking, sometimes difficult, but always intriguing journey.

In Irish Memories/Sydney Lives, 2015, Siobhan, oral historian, writer and documentary maker, wrote of her insights into Colleen's life: Colleen Burke's working class origins in Bondi reveal a classic Irish-Australian feisty and public-spirited. Colleen left school at 15 and became a typist, but through grit and talent, ended up as a mature age university student, celebrated poet, community activist and pioneering feminist. 

Splicing air
Feakle Press, Sydney, 2013
The poems in Splicing air, the eleventh poetry book by Colleen Z Burke, offers many treasures.  There are creative meditation on diverse landscapes - mountains, islands, inner cities, as well as perceptive and witty insights into what it means to be alive and the joys and wonder of children, grandchildren, corroboree frogs and other threatened species.  There are fascinating and richly researched poetic narratives on historical themes - from Australia's Aboriginal history to the story of a fossil hunter in the early to mid-1880s, Mary Anning.  It is a book to read, relish and re-read.



Fermenting
Seaview Press , 2007
The poems in this tenth poetry book by Colleen Burke will warm your heart with their perception, humour and humanity. From sea-scapes to inner-cities;  historical perspectives to the present day, Colleen's insightful poetry takes us to the core of life.
The odd pagan or two
Kardoorair Press , 2004
Open Boat Barbed Wire Sky
Live Poets Press , 2003
An anthology of poems by different writers, including Colleen, about refugees.
Turning Wave Poems and Songs of Irish Australia
Kardoorair Press , 2001
Pirouetting on a Precipice
Seaview , 2000
Poems of the Blue and White Mountains
My World Alight - the life and work of Amy Hall, Colleen Burke, Women Writers of Randwick, Maroubra Junction, 1999

Home Brewed and Lethal
Cochon , 1997 
New and Selected Poems
Wildlife in Newtown
Feakle Press , 1994 
the edge of it
Feakle Press , 1992
Dohertys Corner
Sirius Books , 1985
The Life and Work of Poet Marie E.J.Pitt
She Moves Mountains
Redress Press/Wild & Woolley , 1984 
The Incurable Romantic
Outback Press , 1979
Hags Rags and Scriptures
Cochon , 1976
Go Down Singing
Kashmik Poets Series , 1974









Declan Affley
Memorial LP, 1987, TAR 020
Produced by Colleen Burke, Mark Gregory and Peter Parkhill