Traumata

by Meera Atkinson

  The drawings of human brain neurons throughout are from Texture of the Nervous System of Man and the Vertebrates Vols I and II (edited by Pedro Pasik and Tauba Pasik and originally published around the turn of the twentieth century) by the Spanish scientist, medical artist and Nobel Laureate Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Cajal reportedly referred to neurons as ‘mysterious butterflies of the soul’. I thank Antonella Franchini and the Fisher Library at the University of Sydney for practical assistance in obtaining digital versions of them.

  The cover photos were taken by Christopher Wright and are used with kind permission from Christina Lena Wright. The photo on page 181 was taken by my grandfather, John Clayton (neé Denzil Bertram Wilmot Carvalho). Permission to use the photo on page 247 compliments of Lisa Walker. The photographers of images on pages 45, 148, 211 and 221 are unknown. My father, Russell Frank Atkinson, took the remaining photographs and I thank him for permission to use them. He’s a bloody good sport.

  Parts of this book were previously published in various forms: ‘Child’s Play: The Biggest Sherbet Fans Ever’, Griffith Review 33: Such Is Life, 2011; ‘Waiting for Dad-o’, Meanjin Quarterly, vol. 69, no. 2, 2010; ‘The Exiled Child’, Griffith Review 15: Divided Nation, 2007; ‘Girls Talk’, Griffith Review 11: Getting Smart, 2006; ‘From a Moving Car’, Griffith Review 9: Up North, 2005; ‘Beauty and the Bêtê Noire’, Griffith Review 4: Making Perfect Bodies, 2004.

  The poem ‘Circle’ was previously published in Map of Skin: Selected Poems, a chapbook published by Pink Flamingo Press in 1995. ‘To the girl’ was published in Heat, no. 5, Giramondo, in 1997, and ‘Writing a Dear John letter while reading Abraham and Török’ was published in The Best Australian Poems 2010 (edited by Robert Adamson), Black Inc., 2010.

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