Frankie McMillan
Frankie McMillan is a short story writer and poet. She completed an MA at the International Institute of Modern Letters at Victoria University in 1998. Her publications include The Bag Lady’s Picnic and other stories and a collection of poetry, Dressing for the Cannibals. Recent poetry has appeared in Turbine, Snorkel, JAAM, International Literary Quarterly, The Cincinnati Review, The London Grip and Shenandoah.
Her short stories have been included in Best New Zealand Fiction (Vintage, 2008 and 2009). In 2005 she was the recipient of the CNZ Todd Bursary. In 2009 she won the New Zealand Poetry Society International Poetry Competition. Currently she teaches creative writing at the Hagley Writers’ Institute.
McMillan comments: ‘“Piece by Piece” began with a few observations but then a shift occurred and grief announced itself as the subject material. Where the dead “go” and what form they take is a mystery to me—“is this how the dead balance their limbs?”
‘I quite like the naïve enquirer approach as it allows some risk taking. In this poem it’s more important to ask the questions than answer them. The person shaking hands with the Queen in the Square is my mother.’
