Bill Manhire

'Strange Self-Congratulations, Flat Whites': Some notes on Bill Manhire

Robert McLean

Black painting XV, from ‘Malady,’ a poem by Bill Manhire, 1970, by Ralph Hotere.
Black painting XV, from ‘Malady,’ a poem by Bill Manhire, 1970, Dunedin, by Ralph Hotere. Purchased 1971. ©Te Papa. CC BY-NC-ND licence. Te Papa (1971-0024-2).

By international standards all New Zealand publishing is small press publishing. The country is home to only 4.73 million people. If a significant proportion of the adult population supports the authors of cookery and gardening books, such enthusiasm rarely extends to buying titles by novelists, playwrights, and poets.

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