Dawn Colsey has always loved words and language and graduated BA with Honours in French from Adelaide University. She was a teacher of English and French and student of Latin and Italian over a long teaching career. She taught for twenty years at Walford Anglican School for Girls until an increasing interest in theology led her to achieve BTh at Flinders University through St Barnabas' College. Five years ago she was ordained in the Anglican Church and now works as a priest at Kensington Gardens and nearby parishes. Dawn sees a close connection between poetry and prayer, where thoughts arise from close attention and observation in the course of daily life. Anglican worship is infused with the poetic, through the psalms and much of scripture, and the beauty of the liturgy. Her impulse to write also comes from pastoral work, love of the natural world and the joy of having six grandchildren. Dawn has had poems published in most Friendly Street anthologies since 1989, and in many local journals from Kensington and Norwood Writers' Group, Sophia Women Writing and Bindii Japanese Genre Group. She was awarded the Haibun prize by Kaji Aso Studio, Boston, Massachusetts, in 2010. 'For Alison' was included in the Rev'd Lesley McLean's PhD on Alison Gent, 2014. Dawn has facilitated creative writing through A Passion of Poets and informally with friends over many years, and is especially interested, as are many artists, musicians and writers, in the source of inspiration as often coming from beyond ourselves, so that the one who creates and the one who receives experiences more than is apparent on first reading. After Jacaranda Song (Ginninderra Press Pocket Poets, 2014), this is Dawn's first full-length collection of poetry.
