Robin Hyde (1906–1939) born Iris Wilkinson, is seen here (second to right with dark hair in bunches) beside her mother Nelly Wilkinson and with her sisters. Detail from a family photo 1919, Robin Hyde Gallery, NZEPC.
Robin Hyde’s “signature” long poem, “Young Knowledge,” written in late 1936, conjures up a tonal ambiguity. Is the poem ironical about youthfulness (and the impossibility of it being hopeful in hard times) and the associated youthfulness of her country? “Young” tagged to “knowledge” is a fluid signifier — how to read it? At the time Hyde wrote this poem, many of her contemporaries, particularly writers, artists, and intellectuals, felt that the earlier socially mixed and idealistically egalitarian settler society had disappeared.
Robin Hyde’s “signature” long poem, “Young Knowledge,” written in late 1936, conjures up a tonal ambiguity. Is the poem ironical about youthfulness (and the impossibility of it being hopeful in hard times) and the associated youthfulness of her country? “Young” tagged to “knowledge” is a fluid signifier — how to read it?
Rewi Alley, 'Poems for Aotearoa' (Auckland: New Zealand-China Society and Progressive Book Society, 1972) and '73 Man to Be' (Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1970).
The New Zealander Rewi Alley (1897–1987)[1] was raised in a progressive home imbued with a range of ideals (educational, suffragist, and in favor of Henry George-style land reform) during the late Victorian period of colonial settlement by English migrants. This vibrant and highly energized (and energizing) young man had a mixed rural and urban upbringing during the light-leftist Liberal Government of Premier Richard Seddon, and his urban secondary school (Christchurch Boys’ High School) was then a site of Anglophile and imperialistic views as well as an elite “prep” school for Canterbury College. It is no surprise, therefore, that Rewi and his elder brother (Eric) volunteered to serve in the slaughter of the Great War, Eric dying at the Somme (1916) and Rewi badly wounded after acts of great valor near Cambrai-Baupame in late 1918.
The New Zealander Rewi Alley (1897–1987)[1] was raised in a progressive home imbued with a range of ideals (educational, suffragist, and in favor of Henry George-style land reform) during the late Victorian period of colonial settlement by English migrants.
When a poet voices primarily for performance, publishing sparsely, then leaves the spoken-word scene it can be difficult for subsequent generations to recover and appreciate that voice; what was cutting when delivered can sound blunt from the perimeter of decades. Commentary is prompted then sustained by an evidential body of work once the live performance is over.
Julia Allen as Lulu in the Frank Wedekind play, directed by Peter Falkenberg for the Free Theatre, Christchurch, May 1986.
In July 2003 the late John O’Connor, an essential figure in the Cantabrian poetry scene in which Julia Allen was prominent, suggested that:
the work of a number of otherwise diverse and nationally and/or internationally linked poets shared enough of the following characteristics to identify their work as coming from Christchurch:
from 'Unwrapping the Body' (Dunedin: Bothwell, 1970), n.p.
In 1978, Joanna Margaret Paul (1945–2003) published Imogen, a limited-edition book of poems dealing with the death of her infant daughter. Despite winning the Pen Best First Book of Poetry award, it received little critical attention. Only one brief review appeared in Landfall written by the then rising-star poet Brian Turner. Turner, while impressed with the book’s typographical layout — Paul was already an established visual artist — wrote of how he was “left drained” by its emotional intensity. The book, he concluded, was more of “an experience than a poem”: there just wasn’t “enough poetry” in it.
In 1978, Joanna Margaret Paul (1945–2003) published Imogen, a limited-edition book of poems dealing with the death of her infant daughter. Despite winning the Pen Best First Book of Poetry award, it received little critical attention. Only one brief review appeared in Landfall written by the then rising-star poet Brian Turner. Turner, while impressed with the book’s typographical layout — Paul was already an established visual artist — wrote of how he was “left drained” by its emotional intensity.
.jpg "Brigid Kelly")
Cracked mirrors