June Shenfield, Hutt and Famous Reporter

My poem Space Kus is the lucky winner of this year’s June Shenfield Poetry Award, open to all higher education students at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, set up in memory of former student June Shenfield.

June Shenfield graduated from Swinburne University in 1980 with a Bachelor of Arts degree, specialising in the study of Literature. She was a poet, playwright and performance artist who lived and worked in Paris. In 1985, with her husband Ken Shepherd, she opened the first art gallery and bookshop in France that was devoted to Australian art and writing.

I was privileged to meet members of June’s family at the award ceremony last week and am of course thrilled and flattered that my poem has been chosen.

Fresh off the text editor is hutt, the little e-zine attached to papertiger media, who will be publishing my book We Will Disappear later this year. Issue 2.5 of hutt is a special birthday issue and features great new stuff from Andy Jackson (nice sonnet), Jill Jones, Brett Dionysius and more, including my poem Betty Conquers All.

Lastly, my semi-coherent rant In Defence of Poetry (and Poets) has been picked up by Famous Reporter and can now be read online – expect the print version of the magazine to be kicking against the pricks around June.