Nandi Chinna
I am a research consultant and poet based in Perth, Western Australia. My professional and artistic interests include Ecological Humanities, Biophilia, Social History and Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the connections and interstices between non-human and human communities. My poetry publications include: Swamp; walking the wetlands of the Swan Coastal Plain (Fremantle Press, 2014); Alluvium, (Art text project with illustrator Andrea Smith, Lethologica Press, 2012); How to Measure Land, (Picaro Press, Byron Bay Writers Festival, 2010); and Our Only Guide is Our Homesickness (Five Islands Press, 2007).
In 2016 I was Writer in Residence at King’s Park and Botanical Gardens in Perth, Western Australia. I was winner of the Tom Collins Poetry prize in 2014, and the Fremantle History Award in 2016 for my History of Clontarf Hill. In February this year as part of the 2017 Perth International Arts Festival, I collaborated with Amy Sharrocks and the Museum of Water to facilitate the creation of a community water poem and an interactive walking tour of lost water bodies. I facilitate regular writing labs on ‘poepatetics’ – the art of walking and writing.
My latest publication is The Future Keepers (2019) published by Fremantle Press.