Lorraine McGuigan – April 10 2016

World Parkinson’s Day – April 11 2016

Lorraine was born in Melbourne and grew up in Sydney. Due to her mother’s illness she left school at 13 and the Child Welfare Department sent her to live with an aunt in Melbourne. After hitchhiking around Europe and marrying in London, she returned to Melbourne and studied Literature and Philosophy at Deakin University. When her two year old granddaughter was in hospital with suspected meningitis 25 years ago, she was prompted to scribble out a poem and rediscovered her earlier love of writing. She went on to publish her debut collection, What the Body Remembers. Lorraine writes on discomforting subjects including cruelty and disturbance experienced in childhood/girlhood. She has won many awards and hundreds of her poems have been published in journals here and overseas. She currently runs workshops and is managing editor of Monash University’s Poetry Monash. Lorraine has recently been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease but continues to write with her usual insight and humour.

Blood Plums
Walleah Press, 2014; ISBN 9781877010637

Haunting and humorous in turn, Blood Plums is a collection of 71 poems which invite the reader to share in small yet poignant moments in Lorraine’s life. Blood Plums is dedicated to her late husband, Kevin, their six children, twelve grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Wings of the Same Bird
Interactive Press, 2009; ISBN 9781458724847
This is an impressive collection grown from the mythological idea linking birds and the human world with divine realms just beyond ordinary experience. The poems connect birds with the journey of the human soul after death, representing them as primeval, cosmic, legendary, as messengers of the deities, symbols of war, death and misfortune, but also as profound harbingers of strength, love and wisdom. The poetry collection also handles grief from an objective, elevated and (excuse the pun) ‘bird’s eye’ perspective.