'My story cannot be painted onto a canvas - it is skin painting.
Brave, haunting and evocative, this powerful volume is poetry as memoir. From her early experiences in an institution and the effect of this on her family to the illustration of her strength as an adult, Elizabeth Hodgson helps make a slice of Aboriginal experience accessible and resonant. Skin Painting explores themes of art, identity, sexuality and loneliness. It is both universal and intimated, honest and important.'
Source: Publisher's blurb
This collection is not the same as Hodgson's earlier manuscript, 'Skin Painting', for which she was highly commended in the 2002 David Unaipon Award. A few poems from the earlier collection have been substantially re-worked and included in the 2007 award-winning manuscript; the majority of the poems are new.
Dedication: Dedicated to the memory of Aunty Joy Williams 13 September 1942 - 22 September 2007. She went down fighting but there are others who have picked up the words and continued the struggle for compensation and recognition of the hurt done to Aboriginal people by the forced removal of children from their families.
And to Les Matthews - my English teacher who told me I would become a writer.
