'Though dear to my heart is Zealandia, / For
the home of my boyhood I yearn; / I dream, among sunshine and
grandeur, / Of a land that is misty and stern; / From the land
of the moa and the Maori / My thoughts to old Scotia will turn;
/ Thus the Heather is blent with the Kauri / And the Thistle
entwined with the Fern.'
Thus John Liddell Kelly (1850-1926), wishing that his native
country and his new land could be somehow brought together across
the separating seas. Despite the unbelievable changes in communication
since his lifetime, and a constant coming and going between Scotland
and New Zealand, both countries remain ill-informed, generally,
about each other's literatures, especially poetry.
› More about this
selection
The poets
Bill Manhire
 'Kevin',
the closing poem from Bill Manhire's collection Lifted,
caught me the moment I read it in December 2007, when I was browsing
in a bookshop in the northland town of Whangarei. I bought the
book on the strength of that poem alone…
› Bill Manhire introduced by
Alan Riach
› Kevin by Bill Manhire
Glenn Colquhoun
My first encounter with Glenn Colquhoun's poetry was a gift from a New Zealander, my Aunt Fran, in 2003; and the book she gave me was Playing God. They are poems I came to love, not because they call me back to the place of my childhood, or explore a history, or evoke a landscape of tussock or tree ferns...
› Glenn Colquhoun introduced by Gerrie Fellows
› Increasingly sophisticated methods of divination used in the practice of medicine by Glenn Colquhoun
Anne Kennedy
 Reading Anne Kennedy is not like reading at all. It's like watching a life spin and turn, like a washing machine of words, flipping and sorting and humming with the day to day business of families and children and houses and milk bottles and doctor's appointments and scattered conversations…And love. Always love...
› Anne Kennedy introduced by Kirsty Gunn
› I Am (1) by Anne Kennedy
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