Perfectly Bruised is a bi-lingual selection of Melinda Smith’s work between 2001 and 2019, in English and Mandarin. Her poetry shifts between multiple voices, perspectives, and forms, by turns quirky, witty, tender and forceful. The judges of the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award described her as ‘a major new poet’ and her work as ‘full of unexpected and richly varied pleasures’, praising ‘its range of technique and tone’ and ‘its depth of ideas, imagery and emotion’. In this selection from her work the reader is often surprised, and sometimes disoriented – but never bored.
Translated by Karen Kun and Beibei Chen.
Karen, Kun Teng Teng graduated and was awarded Master of Philosophy from the University of Macao. She is an English teacher and has worked in various poetry translation projects.
Beibei Chen graduated and was awarded Doctor of Philosophy from UNSW, Australia. She is a literary critic, poet and a university lecturer in ECNU, Shanghai. Her critical works and poems have been published on Hua Wen Wen Xue, Westerly, Southerly and Antipodes.
Melinda Smith is a poet, editor, teacher, arts advocate and event curator based in Canberra. She is the author of seven poetry collections, including the 2014 Prime Minister’s Literary Award-winner Drag down to unlock or place an emergency call. She frequently collaborates with artists in other disciplines including dancers, musicians and visual artists, and is also a former poetry editor of The Canberra Times. Her latest books are Goodbye, Cruel (Pitt Street Poetry, 2017) and the chapbook Listen, bitch with artist Caren Florance (Recent Work Press, 2019). Man-handled is forthcoming from Recent Work Press in September 2020.
