Cleanskin

Helping New Poets Into Print

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Exciting, imaginative poetry is flourishing in the West.

The Perth-based literary journal Westerly has published the first of what it hopes may become a series of first poetry collections by emerging Western Australian poets.

Fremantle writer Megan McKinlay’s first collection of poems, Cleanskin, will go out to all Westerly subscribers with issue 52 of the journal.

Cleanskin, which comes with an audio CD of the author and discussing a selection of her poems, is also available separately at $9.95 (plus postage) from the Westerly Centre website (see below).

Publication has been made possible by a grant from the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts under its “A Few New Words” initiative which encourages the publication of new and emerging poets.

The twenty-four poems range widely in subject and tone: from the wittily ironic (“Spoken Word Blues”) and the quirky and strange (“Walter”) to the intensely personal (“Travels without My Daughter”).

“Travels without My Daughter” – Megan’s first poem – was written in the departure lounge at Perth International Airport as she was about to board a flight to Japan in 1999.

“A lot of the poems are autobiographical in some form, but generally in a very associative way”, says Megan. “That is, they’re generally a kind of agglomeration of disparate experiences, thoughts, fragments, whose currents pull together at some point to form the beginnings of a poem.”

Megan will be giving readings from Cleanskin at selected Perth metropolitan libraries in November and December. As well as poetry, she writes fiction. Her first children’s novel, Annabel Again, was published by Walker Books Australia in June.

Westerly co-editor Professor Dennis Haskell said: “Westerly’s call for poetry manuscripts yielded fifty-three submissions, most of very good quality. As many as eleven of the manuscripts seemed to us to be publishable.

“Megan McKinlay’s manuscript was chosen for its imaginative intelligence.

“It was stimulating to discover how much fine poetry was available”, Dennis added, “and we thank all the poets who participated.”

November 2007

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Cleanskin order form

Order single or multiple copes of Cleanskin @ $9:95 each (includes GST within Australia. Postage extra).

Name ……………………………………………………………………………………..........
Address……………………………………………………………………………………........
…………………………………………………………Postcode………………....................
Phone ………………………………Email……………………………………………............

I would like ............ copies of Cleanskin........... = $................

ABN 37 882 817 280 Total $................


Fill in the details above and mail to: Westerly, M 202, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, WA 6009. Australia


Please make your cheque payable in * Australian Dollars only to The University of Western Australia and send to:

Westerly
M 202
The University of Western Australia,
Crawley WA 6009
Australia.

Payment can also be made through Visa, Mastercard, or Bankcard.

NAME ON CARD:____________________________________________________

CREDIT CARD: _ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ /_ _ _ _ Expiry date: _ _ /_ _

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Further Information

Megan McKinlay

tel: (08) 9434 3817
email: meg[at]megmckinlay.com

Dennis Haskell

tel: (08) 6488 2071
email: dhaskell@cyllene.uwa.edu.au

Rob Finlayson(WA Department of Culture and the Arts)

tel: (08) 9224 7327
email: rob.finlayson@dca.wa.gov.au