Personal information

Australia, United States, Croatia

Biography

Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon (D-Napoleon) is a writer, singer-songwriter, and educator from Fremantle/Walyalup, Australia. She has a PhD in Creative Writing from Edith Cowan University and spent the last decade in the United States where she worked as a Coordinator at the Santa Barbara City College Writing Centre. Her concrete poetry, erasure poetry, free verse and creative non-fiction has appeared in Meanjin, Cordite, Entropy, Antipodes, Griffith Review, The Found Poetry Review, Westerly, Southerly, Australian Poetry Journal and Writer's Digest (US). Her work has been published widely in anthologies in the United States and Australia. Recently, she was a guest of the Newcastle Writers Festival and Clunes Booktown Festival. She is a volunteer committee member of WA Poets and was previously a member of the Voicebox poetry collective.

Natalie’s poem ‘First Blood: A Sestina’ won the prestigious Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize (2018) through the University of Southern Queensland. In 2019 Ginninderra Press released Natalie’s debut poetry collection First Blood, based on her girlhood experiences on a farm as a child of Croatian immigrants. She won the KSP Poetry Prize in 2019 for ‘If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears’ which has also been published in The Australian (Review). Natalie’s work continues to be shortlisted for major prizes in Australia and America, such as the Peter Porter Poetry Prize and the AAALS prize. She has been awarded the Red Room Poetry Fellowship (2024) and KSP Emerging Writer-in-Residence Fellowship (2023). Natalie currently teaches writing and English as a foreign language having recently completed a PhD on erasure poetry and historic amnesia.

Her second poetry book, If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears, is out now through Life Before Man/Gazebo Books. Through her academic and creative work she explores the intersection of feminist, post-colonial, and autoethnographic theories and methodologies with a focus on nonfiction storytelling, history and poetry as craft.

Activities

Education and qualifications (5)

Edith Cowan University: Perth, AU

2019-07 to 2024-08 | Doctor of Philosophy - Creative Writing (School of Arts and Humanities)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Swinburne University of Technology: Melbourne, AU

2013-02 to 2016-11 | Master of Arts (Writing) (School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

University of Cambridge: Cambridge, GB

2004-08 to 2004-09 | Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA) (ESOL Examinations)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Curtin University: Perth, AU

1994-02 to 1995-11 | Bachelor of Arts (Honours) (School of Arts)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

University of Western Australia: Perth, AU

1990-02 to 1993-11 | Bachelor of Arts (English) (Faculty of Arts)
Education
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Works (33)

Burning Sand on Bare Feet

Australian Poetry Anthology (APJ)
2024-09 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 22043608
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Weaving Them Home

StylusLit (Issue 16)
2024-09 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2207-4473
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

The Commonwealth of Amnesia: A collection of erasure and cut-up poems exploring the forgotten histories of Croatian and Yugoslav peoples in Australia and an exegesis Obliteration Creates More: examining the wreck of history through whiteout, blackout and cut-up erasure poetry

2024-09-18 | Dissertation or Thesis
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Marry Right Man Mary

Cordite Poetry Review (114)
2024-09-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Name a Place a Woman’s Body Can Be Safe Enough to Call Home

Australia Poetry Journal (13.1)
2024-08 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2203-7519
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Book review: Who Comes Calling?, Miriam Wei Wei Lo

Arts Hub
2024-03-05 | Book review
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Immigration Triction

Australian Book Review
2024-01 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 01552864
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears

Science Write Now
2023 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

No Moon and Salt

Rabbit (37): A Journal for Nonfiction Poetry
2023 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 22009868
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

If There Is a Butterfly That Drinks Tears

Life Before Man/Gazebo Books
2023-09-25 | Book | Writing - review & editing
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

O Human (Poem)

Dear human at the edge of time : poems on climate change in the United States
2023-09-01 | Book chapter
Part of ISBN: 9781734496543
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

The Non-Bogus Paradox of Keanu Reeves & Most Serious Choice (A, Most Excellent, Cento)

Cordite Poetry Review (110: Pop)
2023-09-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

More Flies Than Stars

Westerly (67.1)
2022 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Night Stitches (A Cento)

Antipodes
2022 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2331-9089
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

4 Poems

Axon: Creative Explorations
2022-12 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 1838-8973
Contributors: Dominique Hecq
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

One Day I Will Learn to Love Keeping My Mouth Shut

Australia Poetry Journal (12.1)
2022-09 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2203-7519
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Ghazal to a Mother's Love

Westerly (67.2)
2022-09-21 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Interrupted

Cordite Poetry Review (106: Open)
2022-09-15 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Singing Statistics from Rottnest Island (Wadjemup) (1915)

StylusLit (Issue 11)
2022-03 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2207-4473
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

The Crackle

Australian Poetry Journal (9)
2022-03 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 2203-7519
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

A father at 1.5 metres: Poems of pandemic and fatherhood

2021-01 | Dissertation or Thesis | Supervision
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon; Edward Leeming
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

On Day One, We Will Begin Working

Cordite Poetry Review (97-98: Propaganda)
2020-10-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Definition: wog (n); a thing

Griffith Review
2020-08-01 | Journal issue or edition
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Night-Blooming Cereus

Cordite Poetry Review (95: Earth)
2020-02-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

First Blood

Ginninderra Press
2019-08 | Book | Writing - review & editing
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Zemlja and Pioneer Day

Landscapes: the Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language
2019-04-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Crossing

Meanjin
2019-03-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Write an Island

Griffith Review
2019-01-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Tell a Story; Your Mother Says it Was the Books

Hecate (vol. 44.1/2)
2018-11-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Family History

StylusLit (Issue 3)
2018-03 | Journal article
Part of ISSN: 22074473
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

No Box

Southerly (78.2)
2018-01-01 | Journal article
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Cementerio (Cemetery)

To Give Life a Shape: Poems Inspired by the Santa Barbara Museum of Ar
2017 | Book chapter
Part of ISBN: 9780998645827
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon

Six Word Memoir

Six Word Memoir - The Best Advice in Six Words
2015 | Book chapter
Part of ISBN: 9781250067012
Contributors: Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon
Source: Self-asserted source
Natalie Damjanovich-Napoleon