Jenny Powell

Websitehttps://www.jennypowell.co.nz/

Jenny Powell's poems have been widely published in journals and anthologies. Her first collection of poems, Sweet Banana Wax Peppers was published in 1998, and her most recent work, Meeting Rita was published by Cold Hub Press in 2021. Powell was the 2020 RAK Mason Fellow. She has been a finalist in the UK Plough Poetry Prize, International Aesthetica Poetry Award, runner up in the UK Mslexia Poetry Competion, short listed in the Welsh Poetry Competition and the NZ Society of Authors Janet Frame Memorial Award.  

She has been involved in numberous collaborative projects, including two poetry collaborations. Double Jointed  was written with Powell in duet with ten other poets, and Locating the Madonna was written with poet Anna Jackson. Powell's multi-media performance piece Alive in Berlin, was a finalist in the Dunedin Theatre Awards outstanding script/narrative/libretto.       

Genre:

  • Autobiography / Memoir
  • Poetry

Skills:

  • Poetry Readings
  • Public Speaking
  • Readings
  • Readings (adults)
  • Workshops (adults)
  • Workshops (children/schools)

Branch:

Otago/Southland

Location:

Dunedin

Publications:

The Case of the Missing Body

This is the true and unusual story of Lily, who has no sense of her body. Desperate to try anything to ‘be normal’, a skeptical Lily agrees to begin work with her physiotherapist in a gymnasium. One extraordinary day, working in the gym, Lily discovers she has shoulder blades. All her life she has thought people only felt their heads, with thoughts trailing along in and behind them. Now she has shoulder blades. There is nothing easy about what is to follow. Neither Patrick (the physiotherapist) nor Lily could have predicted it. But with help from professionals, the writer of this moving memoir becomes her own detective, searching for clues to help her find her own body.

South D Poet Lorikeet

Published by Cold Hub Press, 2017, this collection establishes South Dunedin as the poet's place. These are poems that travel in unexpected directions, with themes that twist and replicate like the patterns of DNA.