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HeadworX republishes forgotten Canterbury poet

Posted Monday, November 11, 2013 by Mark Pirie
Archived as Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop, HeadworX Publishers, A Stanley Sherratt

My publishing company HeadworX in Association with Earl of Seacliff Art Workshop has just released a new edition of early New Zealand poet A. Stanley Sherratt's Maori myths/legends, Polynesian Legends. The edition includes a substantial introduction by Dr Michael O'Leary and comment by Vaughan Rapatahana.

A. Stanley Sherratt (b. 1891) is a Canterbury poet of interest for his early sequence of poems on Maori myths/legends that were ground-breaking for his time period (the 1920s) and still make for powerful reading today.

See the book information page here for more details.

Copies can be purchased from me directly using the contact form on this website.

 

broadsheet features historical New Zealand poets

Posted Sunday, October 20, 2013 by Mark Pirie
Archived as broadsheet: new new zealand poetry, Christchurch Star poetry

The twelfth issue of my poetry journal, broadsheet: new new zealand poetry has gone historical with a special feature on The Star poets of Christchurch 1922-26, a mostly unknown and previously unacknowledged group of early New Zealand poets.

I came across the 'lost' group in the Christchurch Star by happenchance while researching my grandfather Tom Lawn's Canterbury rugby career during the 1920s.

I decided to collect them in a special issue in order to bring their work to public attention and notice.

I couldn't find the Star group mentioned in New Zealand poetry anthologies or in studies of the period. A check of the recent Oxford history and companion similarly brought up no references to the poets.

Of these Star poets, the best known is Una Auld (nee Currie) who also appears in Bill Manhire's recent 100 New Zealand Poems and 121 New Zealand Poems anthologies.

The Star poets included are: Una Auld (nee Currie), R D Brown, Aline Dunn, H S Gipps, H H Heatley, Bessie L Heighton, Honor Gordon Holmes, E A Irwin, W J McKellow, Patricia Parker, T E L Roberts, Sherratt, H Tillman and Ida M Withers.

To read the online pdf of the issue, go to:
http://broadsheetnz.wordpress.com

 

Landfall reviews Old Hat by Mark Pirie

Posted Wednesday, October 16, 2013 by Mark Pirie
Archived as Poetry by Mark Pirie

An interesting review of my latest poetry book, Old Hat: A Book of Triolets, appeared in Landfall Online Review.

The reviewer Lynley Edmeades gives an objective and informed view of what I was attempting with the triolet form in Old Hat.

Here's the link:

http://landfallreviewonline.blogspot.com/2013/10/he-wrote-list-of-what-hed-lost.html

Poetry NZ reviews Robert J Pope

Posted Monday, September 9, 2013 by Mark Pirie
Archived as HeadworX Publishers, Robert J Pope

An excellent review of the book I edited by Robert J Pope recently appeared in Poetry NZ 47 (August 2013):

ALISTAIR PATERSON, Editor of Poetry NZ

King Willow, Selected Poems, Robert J Pope, edited Mark Pirie (HeadworX Publishers 4C/19 Cottleville Tce, Thorndon, Wellington; 192 pp) is a scholarly piece of research - a timely and substantial publication. It presents much of the work of Robert J Pope (1865-1949) who had largely dropped out of sight and might otherwise have remained so, as have many other poets who preceded Allen Curnow's 1945 A Book of New Zealand Verse and became overwhelmed by the latter's new orthodoxy. In this respect, Mark Pirie has done stupendous work in rediscovering him (as he has many other writers) and bringing him back into notice. Pope certainly deserves such discovery and recognition. A long term and substantial writer, he 'deserves' as Pirie says, 'recognition ... as a significant precursor to the urban 1950s Wellington Group'. This is an enlightening and extremely worthwhile publication.

Copies of King Willow can be purchased from me directly using the contact form on this website.

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