The Tiger in the Vineyard is a collection shaped by wide personal experience of pressing social issues. The poems reflect a commitment to verse that is lucid, structured, accessible and vivid and draws on its tradition, and a deeply felt concern for the disadvantaged and traumatised. Written in a range of variations on traditional forms and free structures, the poems are grounded in a sense of the dignity and worth of human nature, whatever its circumstances.
'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
'Spoke for generations…finely built, full of pathos.' — Peter Bibby
Michael Robinson's poetry has appeared in numerous journals. In 2009, he was awarded the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize and he was runner-up for the 2007 Tom Collins Poetry Prize. The Tiger in the Vineyard is his first full-length collection.
