The Waves Turn: A Memoir: Colleen Zeita Burke

Poet and author Colleen Burke’s memoir takes the reader into the post World War II decades of the 20^th century and a working-class Irish-Catholic background in Bondi, at a time when strict social, religious and family prohibitions were particularly onerous to women. To escape a problematical childhood, Colleen immersed herself in books and stories of lives in worlds far removed from her own. Leaving school at 15, she worked as a shorthand typist in the Public Service as she questioned everything and sought an education, both formal and informal. She explores the stimulating yet confronting era of the Sixties, encountering a broadening political sphere, folk music, poetry and literature which expressed the frustration of the young against injustice. Racism, popular sentiment, American commercialisation, feminism and of course, the Vietnam War. It was during this turbulent times she met her future husband, Declan Affley https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declan_Affley. This memoir includes a selection of Colleen’s poems.