Contemporary NZ Writers in an International Context

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2009-08-18T08:03:00.007+12:00

[New Zealand Official Year-Book (1919)]

MASSEY ALBANY
School of English and Media Studies

English 139.750:

Contemporary NZ Writers
in an International Context

Administration Guide:

Welcome

Course Timetable

Course Description

Bibliography

Assessment

Poetry Pages:

Anne Carson (b.1950)

Fiona Farrell (b.1947)

Michael Harlow (b.1937)

Susan Howe (b.1937)

Michele Leggott (b.1956)

Graham Lindsay (b.1952)

Paul Muldoon (b.1951)

Peter Reading (b.1946)

Fiction Pages:

Nigel Cox (1951-2006)

Lloyd Jones (b.1955)

Carl Shuker (b.1974)

Alice Tawhai (b.?)

Poetry Sessions:

Blockcourse 1 - Michele Leggott / Susan Howe
- In the Archives

Blockcourse 2 - Graham Lindsay / Peter Reading
- The Notebook Process

Blockcourse 3 - Michael Harlow / Anne Carson
- Back to the Classics

Blockcourse 4 - Fiona Farrell / Paul Muldoon
- The Anxiety of Genre-Bending

Fiction Sessions:

Blockcourse 1 - Nigel Cox
- Dirty Work [1986]

Blockcourse 2 - Lloyd Jones
- Mr Pip [2006]

Blockcourse 3 - Carl Shuker
- The Lazy Boys [2006]

Blockcourse 4 - Alice Tawhai
- Luminous [2007]

[Atrium Building - Massey Albany]

Session 8:

2009-08-13T08:02:00.007+12:00

[Alice Tawhai: Luminous (2007)]

FICTION:
Alice Tawhai

Luminous
(Auckland: Huia, 2007)

•

Session 6:

2009-08-11T12:43:00.024+12:00

[Sloan Schang: The Troubles (2008)]

POETRY:
The Anxiety of Genre-Bending

Fiona Farrell / Paul Muldoon

Itinerary for
Saturday, 18th September:

[gathering at QB4: 9.00-9.30 am]

Lecture: Paul Muldoon & the Troubles /
Discussion of Readings [9.30-11.30 am]
If you click on the hyperlinked name immediately above, it'll take you to my notes for the lecture. If you click on the large hyperlinked name at the top of the page, it'll take you to that writer's author-page on this site.

Seminar 1 [11.30-12.00 noon]

[lunch: 12.00-1.00 pm]

Lecture: Fiona Farrell & Her Fictions /
Discussion of Readings [1.00-3.00 pm]
We'll listen to some recordings of Fiona Farrell reading, and then move into a discussion of the work included in the Course Anthology.

[afternoon tea: 3.00-3.30 pm]

Seminar 2 [3.30-4.50 pm]
The two remaining seminars scheduled for this session will be given (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) by Maryam on Anne Carson's The Beauty of the Husband (2002), and Tracey on Paul Muldoon's The Annals of Chile (1994). We'll also incorporate some discussion of the Final Assignment, worth 40% of your final grade, and due in on 15th October.

[departure: c.5.00 pm]

•

[Paul Muldooon in action]

Paul Muldoon
& the Troubles

Anthology Readings [pp.123-52]:

‘Incantata.’ In The Annals of Chile. London: Faber, 1994. pp. 13-28.
‘The More a Man Has the More a Man Wants.’ In Poems 1968-1998. Faber and Faber, 2001. pp. 127-47.
Seamus Heaney. ‘Paul Muldoon’s The Annals of Chile’. In Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001. 2002. London: Faber, 2003. pp. 395-98.
‘Keeping Going,’ by Seamus Heaney. In The End of the Poem: Oxford Lectures. 2006. New York: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2007. pp.371-73, 389-95.

[Edward Hopper: Gas Station (1940)]

There's an interesting interview with Paul Muldoon in the Listener for February 23-38, 2008 (pp.36-38). There are various points there about the influence (or, rather, the long shadow) of his older, Nobel-prize-winning Ulster compatriot Seamus Heaney over his work which might help us to understand him better, I think.

One critical expression to ponder might be the anxiety of influence, a theory outlined in Harold Bloom's classic 1973 book of the same title. I quote from his own summary:

Every poem is a misinterpretation of a parent poem. A poem is not an overcoming of anxiety, but is that anxiety. Poets' misinterpretations of poems are more drastic than critics' misinterpretations or criticism, but this is only a difference in degree and not at all in kind. There are no interpretations but only misinterpretations, and so all criticism is prose poetry.

This very influential idea is found throughout Muldoon's recent book of essays, The End of the Poem (2006), where he appears to argue that every other poem that ever existed can be cited as a clue for understanding the one under discussion. (For more on Heaney's own poetic genealogy, see my post here).

It's instructive to notice that not even in New Zealand can Muldoon (born 1951) get away without discussing Heaney (born 1939). There's literally a photograph of Heaney included on the second page of the article, paralleling the one of Muldoon!

Heaney's own review of Muldoon's The Annals of Chile (1994), containing the poem "Incantata," can be found in his book of selected essays, Finders Keepers: Selected Prose 1971-2001 (London: Faber, 2002).

[Paul Muldoon: The Annals of Chile (1995)]

The relevant passage runs as follows:

In Paul Muldoon's new book .... personal grief and creative glee keep playing into one another's hands. One of several extraordinary poems here is called 'Incantata', a lamentation for the premature death by cancer of a young and gifted artist. This is both a cry of heartbreak and a virtuoso performance. The higher the lift-off the poem achieves, the deeper the registers it engages ...

'Incantata' commemorates the life and work of Mary Farl Powers, an artist who was much cherished because of the intensity of her striving for spiritual and technical perfection. 'Incantata' is an example of what we might call 'the Lycidas syndrome,' whereby one artist's sense of vocation and purpose is sent into crisis by the untimely death of another. Here Paul Muldoon is possessed by a subject that puts all his brilliance to the test, with the result that he blossoms into truth and humanizes his song to an extraordinary degree. [395-96]

Elsewhere he refers to Muldoon as "one of the era's true originals."

The 'Lycidas' reference is of course to Milton (Shelley's 'Adonais,' on the death of Keats, might be another example - or, for that matter, Tennyson's In Memoriam).

I don't know how Paul Muldoon reacted to that "blossoms into truth" phrase - or the one about "humanizing his song" ... Did it have anything to do with the tone of Muldoon's own remarks about Heaney in his recent book of essays The End of the Poem: Oxford Lectures (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 2006)?

One of the poignancies of "Keeping Going" is the speaker's assertion - one we don't expect from a Heaney speaker - ... [of] the insurmountable fact of the limitations of art:

But you cannot make the dead walk or right wrong

This is not to say that a poem ... doesn't have some efficacy in the world, doesn't effect some change. It must change something, as these ... examples so elegantly display. One of the ways in which they do this is to clear their own space, bringin us 'all together in a foretime,' if I may borrow that phrase from section 3 of "Keeping Going" ... This condition of a "foretime" of the poem is, yet again, a version of what I described earlier as the "problem" to which the poem is a "solution" ... We appeal to the "foretime" of "Keeping Going" and recognise ... that to carry itself forward in the world - testing itself, and us, against a sense of how it itself "was / In the beginning, is now and shall be' - is indeed the end of the poem.

This almost sounds as if he regards poems as self-justifying, posing a "problem" to which they themselves are the "solution." It's certainly a far less ringing pronouncement than Heaney's.

Is Muldoon purely a game-player, or is there more to his poetry? "Incantata" seems heartfelt enough, but what of the other poem I've included in your anthology, "The More a Man Has the More a Man Wants" -- what's that about? The troubles? Or postmodernity in general? It certainly lacks the atmosphere of public poetry which is characteristic of some of Heaney's pronouncements on history.

[Seamus Heaney and friend]

•

[Fiona Farrell: The Pop-Up Book of Invasions (2007)]

Fiona Farrell
& Her Fictions

Anthology Readings [pp.27-48]:

‘Anne Brown’s Song,’ ‘Mary Lawry’s Song,’ ‘Lucy Rainbow’s Song,’ & ‘Charlotte O’Neil’s Song.’ In Cutting Out. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1987. pp. 26-31.
from ‘Words, War, Water:’ Preface,’ ‘Hamed Ameri’s Skull Won’t Stop Growing,’ ‘A, B, C & Z.’ In The Inhabited Initial. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999. pp. 7, 13-15, 66-73.
‘Instructions for the Consumption of Your Humanitarian Food Package.’ In Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance, ed. Jack Ross & Jan Kemp. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007. pp. 54-56.
‘The Lament of the Nun of Beare.’ In The Pop-up Book of Invasions. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007.
‘NZ Book Month Blog' (July 2007).

Fiona Farrell is a writer who's extremely difficult to pin down to one mode or genre or even tone of voice. As you'll see from her author page, she's published three books of poems, a number of plays, and seven books of fiction (including five novels).

This session is intended principally as an examination of her poetry, but I don't doubt that we'll be straying into the whole question of "genre-bending" -- what it means to straddle different creative forms in this way.

There are, of course, a number of precedents one could cite. Herman Melville and Thomas Hardy, two giants of the nineteenth century - and, in New Zealand literature, both Robin Hyde and Janet Frame wrote poetry as well as fiction.

Fiona Farrell is the only one of the eight poets we're discussing in this course to have published substantial amounts of fiction (unless you count Anne Carson's experimental verse novels Autobiography of Red and The Beauty of the Husband).

I guess what I want to discuss principally is the tendency (I would suggest) for novelists writing poetry to be quite conservative in their conception of poetic form. Whether the same holds for poets writing fiction is another question. The categories tend to merge into each other after a while.

Historical novels are never really about the past. They are really about the preoccupations of the time in which they are written.
– Fiona Farrell, Notes on Mr Allbones’ Ferrets (2007)

I wanted to engage the reader in a game – because that is what reading fiction is, after all: it is play, an adult extension of “let’s pretend…”
– Fiona Farrell, Notes on The Hopeful Traveller (2002)

I enjoy rough or unfinished things: preparatory notes, the rough cartoon for a painting, the back of a piece of embroidery, the backsides of buildings …
– Fiona Farrell, Book council blog (2007)

[Fiona Farrell: Mr Allbones' Ferrets (2007)]

•

Session 5:

2009-08-10T08:15:00.013+12:00

[Carl Shuker: The Lazy Boys (2006)]

FICTION:
Carl Shuker

The Lazy Boys: A Novel. 2006
(Auckland: Penguin, 2006)

A Correspondence concerning sources:

From: Carl Shuker
Sent: Sunday, 9 August 2009 11:40 p.m.
To: Paul, Mary
Subject: Re: Fwd: greetings and an enquiry

Hi Mary,
I'd be glad to help out - do you have some specific questions or would you just like a list of texts that influenced/inspired/created a context for the two books?
Yours,
Carl

•

From: Paul, Mary
Subject: RE: Fwd: greetings and an enquiry
To: "Carl Shuker"
Date: Thursday, August 20, 2009, 7:35 AM

Carl, sorry I have been flat out. I just wondered if you could indicate a list of texts – but would like to get back to you with more specific questions at some stage.

Nga mihi o te ra

mary

•

From: Carl Shuker
Sent: Wednesday, 26 August 2009 11:36 a.m.
To: Paul, Mary
Subject: RE: Fwd: greetings and an enquiry

Mary,

Oh that awful old story about emails being lost mid-composition, but this time it was true! I had to start again. This exercise was surprisingly hard given my bookshelves from the period are mostly in Auckland now, but as I remembered I remembered more, and it grew organically and was quite a nice exercise, reminding me again of Paul West.

So here below are some tentpoles for The Method Actors, excluding films and music. More for The Lazy Boys to come. Let me know if this is ANY help at all.

It's rather sweet and surreal for me to picture you and Est discussing the Boys as you stroll through Dunedin.

So this looks rather thin to me now, but these are some of the major works about and upon which I roamed.

Novels and a bit of the most obvious nonfiction

The Method Actors:

Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Girl With Curious Hair and The Broom of the System
Paul West's The Tent of Orange Mist
Bret Ellis's American Psycho, The Informers
JG Ballard's Crash, The Atrocity Exhibition, War Fever, Empire of the Sun, The Kindness of Women, et al.
Ondaatje's Anil's Ghost
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, and The Wild Palms
Joyce, Ulysses
Ryu Murakami, Almost Transparent Blue
Yukio Mishima, all of the tetralogy, and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
Don Delillo, MAO II, Underworld, White Noise
Shusaku Endo, Silence
Italo Calvino Invisible Cities
William Gass The Tunnel
Jorges Luis Borges Labyrinths and Ficciones
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose
John Gardner Mikkelson's Ghosts
Shakespeare Twelfth Night (no surprise)
Edward Seidensticker's and James Murdoch's Japan histories
David Bergamini's Japan's Imperial Conspiracy
Iris Chang's Rape of Nanking
(plus various other nonfic, Herbert Bix, R Gordon Wasson's Mushrooms, Russia and History, Mark Bloch and a lot of other authors actually named in the text and otherwise, etc.)

•

From: Paul, Mary
Subject: RE: Fwd: greetings and an enquiry
To: "Carl Shuker"
Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009, 1:47 AM

Hi Carl, I am so sorry to take so long to respond to your wonderful list. Actually I think we will put Lazy Boys as our text of yours – but Jack and I thought this list would be useful for that too – any comments?

V best wishes

mary

•

From: Carl Shuker
Sent: Wednesday, 4 November 2009 8:55 a.m.
To: Paul, Mary
Subject: RE: Fwd: greetings and an enquiry

Hi Mary,

Bloomsbury's lovely in the rain and leaves right now. I look forward to talking over Xmas. here's a more THE LAZY BOYS-tailored list. More may come to mind...

Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49
David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest, Girl With Curious Hair and The Broom of the System
Bret Ellis's American Psycho, The Informers, Less Than Zero
John Fowles, The Collector, The Magus
Paul Theroux, Waldo, The Mosquito Coast
Nabokov's Lolita and Pale Fire
JG Ballard's Crash, The Atrocity Exhibition, War Fever, Empire of the Sun, The Kindness of Women, et al.
Ondaatje's The English Patient
Faulkner, The Sound and the Fury, and The Wild Palms
Joyce, Ulysses and Portrait
Ryu Murakami, Almost Transparent Blue
Yukio Mishima, all of the tetralogy, and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea
Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal
Rimbaud, A Season in Hell
Don Delillo, MAO II, White Noise
Italo Calvino Invisible Cities
Jorges Luis Borges Labyrinths and Ficciones
Umberto Eco The Name of the Rose
Shakespeare Twelfth Night and Hamlet
Ressler, Robert K., Ann W. Burgess. John E. Douglas. "Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives." and Douglas, John E., Mark Olshaker. "Mindhunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit." plus loads of other killer books
Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind
Stephen King...
Dostoyevsky, Notes from the Underground and Crime and Punishment
Turgenev Fathers and Sons
I read a lot of the more famous 90s Wellington lit, like Chidgey, Quigley and Perkins, as well as Laura Solomon, mostly to shore up my thesis that none of these could write a real-feeling NZ man, especially a young man - sort of getting my back up on purpose, probably
Milton Paradise Lost
All of Kafka
Sylvia Plath - poems, not the novel
Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse
Toni Morrison Sula
Scott Fitzgerald
John Banville The Book of Evidence
Burgess Clockwork Orange (more of an influence on the second of the Novellas, not this book, as per the US blurb)
Stanley Fish
William Gass
A lot of feminist and queer theory from the 90s ...

•

Session 4:

2009-08-09T08:33:00.005+12:00

[Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip (2006)]

FICTION:
Lloyd Jones

Mr Pip
(Auckland: Penguin, 2006)

•

Session 3:

2009-08-08T08:06:00.020+12:00

[William Blake: Satan Observing the Love of Adam & Eve (1808)]

POETRY:
The Notebook Process

Graham Lindsay / Peter Reading

Itinerary for
Saturday, 1st May:

[gathering at QB4: 9.00-9.30 am]

Lecture: Peter Reading: "Don't think it couldn't be you" /
Discussion of Readings [9.30-11.30 am]
If you click on the hyperlinked name immediately above, it'll take you to my notes for the lecture. If you click on the large hyperlinked name at the top of the page, it'll take you to that writer's author-page on this site.

Seminar 1 [11.30-12.00 noon]

[lunch: 12.00-1.00 pm]

Lecture: Graham Lindsay: "away from, and to, language" /
Discussion of Readings [1.00-3.00 pm]
We'll listen to some recordings of Graham Lindsay reading, and then move into a discussion of the work included in the Course Anthology.

[afternoon tea: 3.00-3.30 pm]

Seminar 2 [3.30-4.50 pm]
The two seminars scheduled for this session will be given (one in the morning and one in the afternoon) by Carlota on Michele Leggott, and Catherine on Susan Howe. We'll also incorporate some discussion of the Journal assignment, worth 20% of your final grade, and due in (for preliminary comment only) on 28th May.

[departure: c.5.00 pm]

•

[Peter Reading: -273.15 (2005)]

Peter Reading:
"Don't think it couldn't be you"

Anthology Readings [pp.153-69]:

‘South Bank: Sibelius 5’s …’ In Perduta gente. London: Secker & Warburg, 1989. pp.[5]-[21], [58]-[59].
‘CLIMATE COL …’ In -273.15. Newcastle: Bloodaxe Books, 2005. pp. [22]-[31].

It's difficult to appreciate the extent of Peter Reading's technical innovations without reading at least one of his books as a whole. He does seem to have something of the novelist's temperament - or at least an interest in overarching narratives.

Perduta gente (1989) is still probably his most celebrated single volume, with its critique of Thatcher's Britain, the nuclear industry, and the monstrously proliferating cardboard cities in the great cities of Europe.

More recently, in -273.15 [absolute zero] (2005) he's shifted his attention from social engineering to ecology.

He's definitely an angry man, but one might argue that there's a lot for him to be angry about ...

[Peter Edwards:
Peter Reading: Poet]

•

[Graham Lindsay: Lazy Wind Poems (2003)]

Graham Lindsay:
"away from, and to, language"

Anthology Readings [pp.89-106]:

‘Playground.’ In Big Boy. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994. p.53.
‘Commercial Heart,’ ‘Deliverance’ & ‘Carpenters’ Arms.’ In Return to Earth. Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1991. pp. 12-16, 18.
‘Cloud silence,’ ‘Subject’ & ‘Life in the Queen's English.’ The Subject. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994. pp. 24-25, 32 & 46.
‘Residence in silence.’ In Legend of the Cool Secret. Christchurch: Sudden Valley Press, 1999. pp. 43-44.
‘Chink.’ In Lazy Wind Poems. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003. pp. 46-47.
‘Interview with Jack Ross.’ NZEPC.

If you've read the interview with Graham Lindsay which I included in the Course Anthology, you'll remember that he talks there about his "notebook process":

"I started writing and publishing when I was in my late teens, and that’s twenty, twenty-five years ago [the interview was conducted in 1997]. Over that period of time I’ve been using a kind of notebook process. When something occurs to you, you have a notebook handy so that you can actually put down some approximation of that idea or thought or feeling at the time, whilst you’re hot, whilst you’re familiar with it. So, having adopted that approach, I’ve found that I don’t really know at the time that I’m writing something, whether or not I’m going to be able to do anything more with it. I’ve got to go through it, perhaps months, years later, to see what is of interest there, what I can do something more with.

At this point Graham got up to show me the notebooks in his desk. The bottom drawer was packed full of red, hard-backed 4B1 notebooks. Above was another drawer, perhaps slightly less full. There were, he told me, 132 of them.

During their third birthday symposium in July 2004, Graham was presented with one of the nzepc's special Tapa notebooks. He returned it to Auckland University Library's Special collections for archiving in July 2005. Here's one of the pages:

[10-2-4T]

she said they get some
weird people off the street
during the writing courses
I said I'm one of those people
pretty soon she made a gesture to the effect
'the purpose of my visit had been met'
maybe she shifted in her chair

Yay, Graham! I fear that I might be "one of those people", too ...

only two or three weeks ago we said to each other,
How long has she got? and agreed
two, maybe three years at the most.
The following week she was dead. That last night,

following her up the stairs (my job in case she fell -
he daughter pulling her by wrists) I said the usual
encouraging things like Shake a leg, Granny, and
Go Granny, you're doing well (she had lost the ability to retort).

She put everything into it,
as if it were the last leg to the summit.

Graham also provided an introduction to the notebook:

I felt really honoured to be presented with my tapa notebook. Stephen Innes's choice for me turned out to be a good one too. The cover looks to me to suggest a cosmological scene or one to do with navigation, a dark star seen over the shoulder of a solar flare or above an outrigger sail.

I decided to use my notebook to present a selection of notes from my time as the 2004 Ursula Bethell / Creative New Zealand Resident in Creative Writing at the University of Canterbury. Michele indicated some graphic elements would also be welcome so I began sketching signs on roads and pathways on my cycle route to and from the university.

I've been keeping notebooks for ages, but I've never tried to develop a handwriting style. Occasionally, I've been impressed when a 't' makes a sort of mast or the looping tail on a 'g' looks pretty wild. But I've always considered notebooks as places to catch thoughts and language rather than aesthetic objects or places where thoughts are completed. I usually go back to see what still interests me to see if I can do anything more to it to make it publishable.

So the idea of making a selection from my notebooks, even though it seemed straightforward, caused various performance anxieties, like having my teaching inspected, or replicating a 'spontaneous' conversation.

Which is why I thought Murray Edmond was onto it when he used a ringbinder for his 'tapa': if he made a mistake, he would be able to have another go. I'm not saying he did, just that he could.

In fact I was given two tapa notebooks, I used the other one to do dummy runs in. (It has a cover that vaguely looks like a handmirror with a pixie face in it.)

I did some drafting on my computer too. Though I often went back to the original wordings and constructions because of not having an open-ended amount of time. In the interim I came across this quote from Toss Woollaston: 'Smoothing over work you have just done is going backwards. Tidying up is the devil—you don't touch that in painting. If relations are wrong you make huge alterations, you don't tidy up—you repaint the whole thing every time you touch it.' (From Gregory O'Brien's book Lands & Deeds). I think that's relevant? Also I roughed out a layout on my computer.

I had thought about making my own 'tapa' notebook using locally made paper and learning how to bookbind. I had thought about learning calligraphy. I've always admired my father's handwriting, he used to transcribe his favourite poems by Chinese poets onto a newsprint block. He had a beautiful hand. I've hankered for years to have a go at painting my poems. These thoughts were all part of that. When I accepted Michele's invitation to meet a deadline though I had to get on with it and so the originally intended format was retained.

The title The Priests of Nothingness comes from a quote, which I have included in the notebook, about these Japanese monks called Fuke monks who used the flute as a meditation tool. As the quote says, 'They would walk through the streets . . . trying to play the one note that would enlighten the world.' That's partly what I think poets try to do. I think poets are priests of nothingness.

curtains shifting in light air

shaft like a lift well
on its side:

at the near end
blue light playing along its edges

the far opening on smokey-grey
star clouds

~

It's this "notebook process" I'd like to start off with at our next session. You'll note that the tapa notebook process was far more elaborate - almost staged, in fact. The spontaneity of a notebook can hardly be evident when you've done "dummy runs" in another notebook first, and even done some drafting on the computer first.

I guess that's the reason why Graham had provided that semi-apologetic introduction to "The Priests of Nothingness," as he ended up calling the collection as a whole.

[Graham Lindsay
(Photograph: Bill Lindsay)]

•

Session 2:

2009-08-07T08:35:00.022+12:00

[Doug Savage: World of Poetry (2009)]

POETRY:
In the Archives

Susan Howe / Michele Leggott

Itinerary for
Sunday, 14th March:

[gathering at QB4: 9.00-9.30 am]

Lecture: Susan Howe & American Postmodernism /
Discussion of Readings [9.30-11.30 am]
I'd like you all to have read the material in the Course Anthology on Susan Howe in advance of this session (this applies to all of the sessions from now on, in fact). If you click on the hyperlinked "Susan Howe" immediately above, it'll take you to my notes for this lecture. If you click on the large hyperlinked "Susan Howe" at the top of the page, it'll take you to her author-page on this site.

[lunch: 11.30-12.30 pm]

Lecture: Michele Leggott & the Ancestors /
Discussion of Readings [12.30-2.30 pm]
The same rules apply to the hyperlinks here: one to the author page, the other to the lecture notes. We'll listen to some recordings of Michele Leggott reading, and then move into a discussion of the work included in the Course Anthology.

[afternoon tea: 2.30-3.00 pm]

Writing workshop: cut-ups [3.00-4.50 pm]
Preparation for the Creative Response assignment, worth 20% of your final grade, and due in on 23rd April.

[departure: c.5.00 pm]

•

Poetry Seminars:

You can write on either:

Susan Howe
- Singularities (1990)
  or The Nonconformist’s Memorial (1993)

Michele Leggott
- as far as I can see (1999)
  or Mirabile Dictu (2009)

Graham Lindsay
- The Subject (1994)
  or Lazy Wind Poems (2003)

Peter Reading
- Perduta Gente (1989)
  or -273.15. (2005)

Anne Carson
- Glass, Irony and God (1992)
  or The Beauty of the Husband (2001)

Michael Harlow
- Today is the Piano’s Birthday (1981)
  or Cassandra’s Daughter (2005)

Fiona Farrell
- Cutting Out (1987)
  or The Pop-up Book of Invasions (2007)

Paul Muldoon
- The Annals of Chile (1994)
  or Moy Sand and Gravel (2002)

•

[Susan Howe: Pierce-Arrow (1999)]

Susan Howe
& American Postmodernism

Anthology Readings [pp.63-88]:

‘Making the Ghost Walk About Again and Again.’ In a bibliography of the king’s book or, eikon basilike. Providence: Paradigm Press, 1989. pp. [3]-[21].
‘Thorow.’ In Singularities. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1990.
from ‘Talisman Interview, with Edward Forster.’ The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

What is L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E Poetry? (What is Postmodernism, for that matter? As it manifests itself in poetry, at any rate ...) If you follow the links, you'll have at least some idea of how the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E (or Language) movement grew out of the distinctively American tradition of William Carlos Williams and the Objectivists (Louis Zukofsky & George Oppen) in the 30s and 40s, through the Beats (Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac) in the 40s and 50s, through Black Mountain (Charles Olson and Robert Creeley) in the 50s and 60s, into the linguistic experiments of Charles Bernstein and Ron Silliman in the 70s and 80s.

Is this the best approach to her poetry, though? To be sure, she undoubtedly shares the other Language poets' interest in Post-structural Literary Theory, but perhaps her background in the Fine Arts (Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst and the Surrealists) is a more useful clue to reading her with understanding.

In any case, "In the Archives" is the theme of the session, and that's one reason why I'll be bringing quite so many books and papers along with me. More to the point, though, it reflects Howe's own fascination with the recuperation of lost traditions in Feminism and Radicalism in general.

[NB: I've included some links to online sound recordings of Susan Howe on her author page. Recordings of all the New Zealand poets in the course are accessible in the trilogy of CD/ Text anthologies Classic, Contemporary, and New NZ Poets in Performance (AUP, 2006-8).]

[Susan Howe: Souls of the Labadie Tract (2007)]

•

[Michele Leggott: Journey to Portugal (2007)]

Michele Leggott
& the Ancestors

Anthology Readings [pp.89-106]:

‘dear heart.’ In Swimmers, Dancers. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1991. pp.7-9.
‘Where exactly are we?’ & ‘Micromelismata.’ In DIA. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994. pp. 1-7.
from ‘a woman, a rose, and what has it to do with her or they with one another?’ as far as I can see. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999. pp. 36-37, 39, 47-48.
‘Onset of pericentral darkness.’ NZEPC.

A close parallel can be seen between Susan Howe's work on Emily Dickinson and other "submerged" New England women writers and visionaries (not to mention ambiguous figures such as Charles Peirce and Herman Melville) and Michele Leggott's work on New Zealand equivalents such as Robin Hyde, Ursula Bethell and Lola Ridge (not to mention the sixties and seventies writers she and her fellow-editors Murray Edmond and Alan Brunton unearthed for Big Smoke (AUP, 2000)).

Susan Howe's complex layouts, visual sensibility, and methods of poetic sampling may also prove useful when we attempt to read some of the more experimental pages in Leggott's DIA (1994), though the differences between their poetic projects become more and more apparent from this point on. Howe's obsession with the bloody implications of past repression and normalisation seem quite tonally distinct from Leggott's more affectionate celebration of an overlooked past of gardens, beaches, family albums and romantic love.

[Michele Leggott: "Micromelismata," from DIA (1994)]

We'll be discussing, in this connection, "Dear Heart," from Leggott's second book Swimmers, Dancers (AUP, 1991), and then going on to examine her own version of the Ishtar / Persephone myth: the seven gates of the underworld in the form of meditations on her growing blindness in "a woman, a rose, and what has it to do with her or they with one another" (from as far as I can see (AUP, 1999)).

From this point onwards, somewhat paradoxically, it's possible to detect an opening up and enlargement of Leggott's poetic work, in the expansive Milk and Honey (AUP, 2005), the deluxe art-book Journey to Portugal (Holloway Press, 2007), and now the new book of laureate verses Mirabile Dictu (AUP, 2009).

[Gretchen Albrecht: Collage from Journey to Portugal (2007)]

Gretchen Albrecht's colourful collages in the travel book, together with the emphasis on the natural world in Mirabile dictu show how much Leggott has continued to concentrate on the visual arts, rather than moving her poetic palette into imagery of touch and sound - as some reviewers seemed to expect of her after as far as I can see.

[Michele Leggott: Mirabile Dictu (2009)]

•

Session 1:

2009-08-06T08:38:00.009+12:00

[Nigel Cox: The Catastrophe (2011)]

FICTION:
Ian Wedde

The Catastrophe: A Novel
(Wellington: VUP, 2011)

•

Fiction 3:

2009-07-31T09:55:00.012+12:00

[Alice Tawhai]

Alice Tawhai

Alice Tawhai of Tainui and Ngā Puhi descent was inspired to start writing when she read The Bone People by Keri Hulme as a teenager, and absolutely loved it.

Alice thinks of writing stories as being like painting with words. The colours and the shades have to be exactly right. Her writing practice could be seen as unorthodox as she doesn't start each story at the beginning and finish at the end, she just writes random paragraphs until she knows that they're all there, and then strings them together in an order that makes some sort of sense.

Alice prefers anonymity and thinks that her inspirations, her characters she writes about, deserve any accolades she receives.

Her first book Festival of Miracles was named by the judges of the Montana Book Awards 2006 as one of three deserving candidates for the Best First Book Award for Fiction.

Author Pages:

Huia Publishers Homepage

Bibliography:

Fiction:

Festival of Miracles. Auckland: Huia, 2005.
Luminous. Auckland: Huia, 2007.

•

Fiction 2:

2009-07-30T16:20:00.011+12:00

[Carl Shuker]

Carl Shuker
(b. 1974)

Carl Shuker writes full-time and lives in London. He is a graduate of the University of Canterbury and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington.

In 2006 Shuker was awarded the Prize in Modern Letters for his first novel, The Method Actors. The novel began as a manuscript for Shuker’s Masters in Creative Writing and draws on his time spent living in Tokyo. Infamously rejected by New Zealand publishers, the novel was published in 2005 by American publisher Shoemaker & Hoard.

A second novel, The Lazy Boys, was published in 2006.

[Homepage]

Author Pages:

Author's Homepage

NZ Book Council

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Fiction:

The Method Actors: A Novel. USA: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005 / Auckland: Penguin, 2006.
The Lazy Boys: A Novel. USA: Counterpoint, 2006 / Auckland: Penguin, 2006.

•

Fiction 1:

2009-07-28T08:13:00.008+12:00

[Lloyd Jones (2008)]

Lloyd Jones
(b. 1955)

Lloyd Jones was born in Lower Hutt. A highly-regarded writer working in both fiction and non-fiction, in 2007 Lloyd won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Montana Medal for Fiction and Reader’s Choice Award, and the Kiriyama Prize for his novel Mister Pip. It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2008, Lloyd was made an Arts Laureate and received a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement. A volume of Lloyd’s selected stories, The Man in the Shed is due out in 2009 from Penguin Books.

[Sydney Morning Herald
(Photograph: Domino Postiglione)]

Author Pages:

NZ Book Council

NZ Literature File

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Fiction:

Gilmore's Dairy. Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985.
Splinter. Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988.
Swimming to Australia and Other Stories. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1991.
This House Has Three Walls. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997.
Choo Woo. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1998.
Book of Fame. Auckland: Penguin, 2000.
Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance. Auckland: Penguin, 2002.
Paint your Wife. Auckland: Penguin, 2004.
Mister Pip. Melbourne: Text Publishing Company, 2006.
The Man in the Shed: Selected Stories. Melbourne: Penguin, 2009.

Non-Fiction:

Biografi: an Albanian Quest. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1993.
Last Saturday. Photographs by Bruce Foster. Wellington: Victoria University Press for the National Library of New Zealand, 1994.
Beach. Photographs by Jocelin Carlin. Auckland: Bateman, 1999.

Children's Books:

Napoleon and the Chicken Farmer. Illustrated by Graeme Gash. Wellington: Mallinson Rendel, 2003.
Everything You Need to Know About the World by Simon Eliot. New York: St. Martin's Press / Griffin, 2004.

Edited:

Into the Field of Play: New Zealand Writers on the Theme of Sport. Edited by Lloyd Jones. Auckland: Tandem Press, 1992.
Four Winds Essay Series. Series Editor Lloyd Jones:

On kissing. By Kate Camp. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2002.
On longing. By Vincent O'Sullivan. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2002.
When famous people come to town. By Damien Wilkins. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2002.
On make-up and makeover. By Paula Boock. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
Tracing the Arc. By John Saker. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
On writing hit songs. By Simon Morris. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
Biography of a local palate. By David Burton. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
Under the influence. By Bill Manhire. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
What makes a teacher? By Jack Lasenby. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
These lives I have buried. By Lindsay Rabbitt. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
Ghost who writes. By Martin Edmond. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
Jumping Ship. By Glenn Colquhoun. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
How To Live Elsewhere. By Harry Ricketts. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
On Reading. By Lydia Wevers. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
On Getting Old. By Kevin Ireland. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2005.
On Going to the Movies. By Peter Wells. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2005.
Next to Gods: a Cleaner's Story. By Don Franks. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2005.

Secondary Literature:

Norridge, Zoe. “From Wellington to Bougainville: Migrating Meanings and the Joys of Approximation in Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 45 (2010): 57-74.

•

Poet 8:

2009-07-27T09:09:00.012+12:00

nzepc
[photo: Oliver Read, 2009]

Ian Wedde (b. 1946)

Author Pages

Auckland University New Zealand Literature File

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

New Zealand Book Council Writer Files

New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre

Scottish Poetry Library

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Wedde, Ian. Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos. Cover by Joanna Paul. Akaroa: Amphedesma Press, 1975.

Wedde, Ian. Spells for Coming Out. Drawings by Joanna Paul. Auckland: Auckland University Press & Oxford University Press, 1977.

Wedde, Ian. Castaly: Poems 1974-1977. Drawings by Jeffrey Harris. Auckland: Auckland University Press & Oxford University Press, 1980.

Wedde, Ian. Georgicon. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1984.

Wedde, Ian. Tales of Gotham City. Auckland: Auckland University Press & Oxford University Press, 1984.

Wedde, Ian. Selected Poems: Driving into the Storm. Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Wedde, Ian. The Drummer. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993.

Wedde, Ian. The Commonplace Odes. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001.

Fiction:

Wedde, Ian. The Shirt Factory and Other Stories. Wellington: Victoria University Press & Price Milburn, 1981.

Wedde, Ian. Symmes Hole. Auckland: Penguin, 1986.

Wedde, Ian. Survival Arts. London: Faber, 1988.

Wedde, Ian. The Viewing Platform. Auckland: Penguin, 2006.

Wedde, Ian. Chinese Opera. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2008.

Critical Prose:

Wedde, Ian. How to be Nowhere: Essays and Texts 1971-1994. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1995.

Edited:

Wedde, Ian, & Harvey McQueen, ed. The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse. 1985. Auckland: Penguin, 1987.

Wedde, Ian, Miriama Evans & Harvey McQueen, ed. The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry: Ngā Kupu Tītohu o Aotearoa. 1985. Auckland: Penguin, 1989.

•

Poet 7:

2009-07-26T11:25:00.012+12:00

[Derek Walcott]

Derek Walcott (b. 1930)

Author Pages

Famous Poets & Poems page

Lannan Foundation Reading & Conversation

Nobel Laureate Page

Postcolonialweb.org

Wikipedia

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Walcott, Derek. In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960. 1962. London: Jonathan Cape, 1972.

Walcott, Derek. The Star-Apple Kingdom. Cape Poetry Paperbacks. London: Jonathan Cape, 1980.

Walcott, Derek. Collected Poems 1948-1984. London: Faber, 1986.

Walcott, Derek. The Arkansas Testament. 1987. London: Faber, 1988.

Walcott, Derek. Omeros. 1990. London: Faber, 1991.

Walcott, Derek. The Bounty. London: Faber, 1997.

Walcott, Derek. Tiepolo’s Hound. 2000. London: Faber, 2001.

Plays:

Walcott, Derek. Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken; A Branch of the Blue Nile. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986.

Walcott, Derek. The Odyssey: A Stage Version. London: Faber, 1993.

•

Poet 6:

2009-07-24T08:12:00.010+12:00

[Peter Reading]

Peter Reading
(b. 1946)

Peter Reading is an extremely prolific and original poet who took half a dozen books to become widely known. From the early 1980s his stance has been easy to grasp or parody 'the laureate of grot' is the usual phrase. This is apposite because when not used loosely laureate implies a classical garland and Reading applies classical Greek and Roman metres to squalid contemporary material. Arguments have long raged about his rationale for using this material. Is he an upholder of classical dignity who faces the worst and has to admit that in the teeth of modern barbarism poetry and other hi-falutin' arts are useless? Or is he, as his detractors would say, part of the problem? It is quite clear that the first line is correct 'he doesn't make it up you know', as a line in one of the poems puts it. He insists on detailing these things because they demonstrate what Hom. Sap. is capable of - not to do so would be to reduce poetry to frivolity, as his book Ukulele Music (1985) has it ('Muse, sing the grotty. Scant alternative'). Reading's work is very self-aware and self-referential and the terms in which it is discussed have usually appeared first in the poems.

Peter Reading is one of the few poets working today who uses classical metres. Often these are toyed with outrageously, words sometimes being replaced by metrical symbols; the syntax played over the metre is often fragmentary, and he rarely writes full sentences, preferring agglomerations of phrases, such as 'Crapulous death-fright at 3 in the morning, grim fantasising... / Morphean, painless, idyllic expiry, easeful, Sabaean...'.

Reading is an ornithologist and tends to look at Hom. Sap. through the long glass of evolutionary time. His work is obsessed with last things (in geological terms these probably are the last days of humankind). Just as the geologist interrogates fossils, Reading scans the shoal of textual messages humans produce for clues: tabloids, graffiti, naïve letters by uneducated people. All are documentary evidence of this strange species. ...

- Peter Forbes, 2002.

[Lannan Foundation]

Author Pages:

Bloodaxe Books

Contemporary Writers

Sound Recording

[Contemporary Writers
(Photograph: Jay Shuttleworth)]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Water and Waste. UK: Outposts Magazine, 1970.
For the Municipality's Elderly. London: Secker & Warburg, 1974.
The Prison Cell and Barrel Mystery. London: Secker & Warburg, 1976.
Nothing for Anyone. London: Secker & Warburg, 1977.
Fiction. London: Secker & Warburg, 1979.
Tom O'Bedlam's Beauties. London: Secker & Warburg, 1981.
5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5. Ceolfrith Press, 1983.
Diplopic. London: Secker & Warburg, 1983.
C. London: Secker & Warburg, 1984.
Ukelele Music. London: Secker & Warburg, 1985.
Essential Reading. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986.
Stet. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986.
Final Demands. London: Secker & Warburg, 1988.
Perduta Gente. London: Secker & Warburg, 1989.
Shitheads. Squirrelprick Press, 1990.
Three in One. London: Chatto & Windus, 1991.
Evagatory. London: Chatto & Windus, 1992.
Last Poems. London: Chatto & Windus, 1994.
Collected Poems Volume 1: 1970-84. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1995.
Penguin Modern Poets 3 (Mick Imlah, Glyn Maxwell, Peter Reading). Harmndsworth: Penguin, 1995.
Collected Poems Volume 2: 1985-96. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1996.
Chinoiserie. Bay Press, 1997.
Work in Regress. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1997.
Apophthegmatic. Bay Press, 1999.
Ob. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 1999.
Repetitions. Cleveland, OH: Cleveland State University, 1999.
Marfan. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2000.
Faunal. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2002.
Collected Poems: 1997-2003. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2003.
-273.15. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2005.
Vendage Tardive. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2010.

Secondary Literature:

Martin, Isabel. Reading Peter Reading. Northumberland: Bloodaxe, 2000.

•

Poet 5:

2009-07-23T08:32:00.016+12:00

[Paul Muldoon]

Paul Muldoon
(b. 1951)

Paul Muldoon is a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet from County Armagh, Northern Ireland as well as an educator and academic at Princeton University. He is married to the writer Jean Hanff Korelitz, has two children - Dorothy and Asher - and lives in Griggstown, New Jersey.

Muldoon has lived in the United States since 1987; he teaches at Princeton University and is an Honorary Professor in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. He held the chair of Professor of Poetry at Oxford University for the five-year term 1999–2004, and he is an Honorary Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford University. In addition, he teaches in Vermont at The Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College's graduate program.

Muldoon's work has usually been overshadowed by that of his friend and mentor, Seamus Heaney. Heaney, who won the 1995 Nobel Prize in Literature, is better known and has enjoyed more popular success, while Muldoon has been referred to as 'the poet's poet', whose work is frequently too involved for a more casual readership. However, Muldoon's reputation as a serious poet was confirmed in 2003 with his winning of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

He has been awarded such honours as fellowships in the Royal Society of Literature and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; the 1994 T. S. Eliot Prize; the 1997 Irish Times Poetry Prize, and the 2003 Griffin International Prize for Excellence in Poetry. In September 2007 he was hired as poetry editor of The New Yorker.

Muldoon has contributed the librettos for four operas by Daron Hagen: Shining Brow (1992), Vera of Las Vegas (1996), Bandanna (1998), and The Antient Concert (2005). He is also interested in rock music, writing lyrics and playing rhythm guitar in his own Princeton-based rock band, Rackett.

[Princeton University]

Author Pages:

Contemporary Writers

Official Paul Muldoon Homepage

Poetry Foundation

YouTube Video clip 1

YouTube Video clip 2

[Official Paul Muldoon Home Page (2009)]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Knowing My Place. UK: Ulsterman Publications, 1971.
New Weather. London: Faber, 1973.
Spirit of Dawn. UK: Ulsterman Publications, 1975.
Mules. London: Faber, 1977.
Names and Addresses. UK: Ulsterman Publications, 1978.
Immram. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1980.
Why Brownlee Left. London: Faber, 1980.
Out of Siberia. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1982.
Quoof. London: Faber, 1983.
The Wishbone. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1984.
Selected Poems 1968-1983. London: Faber, 1986.
Meeting the British. London: Faber, 1987.
Madoc: A Mystery. London: Faber, 1990.
The Annals of Chile. London: Faber, 1994.
The Prince of the Quotidian. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1994.
Kerry Slides. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1996.
New Selected Poems 1968-1994 London: Faber, 1996.
Hopewell Haiku. USA: Warwick Press, 1997.
Hay. London: Faber, 1998.
Poems 1968-1998. London: Faber, 2001.
Moy Sand and Gravel. London: Faber, 2002.
Medley for Morin Khur. London: Enitharmon, 2005.
Sixty Instant Messages to Tom Moore. Modern Haiku Press, 2005.
Horse Latitudes. London: Faber, 2006.
When the Pie was Opened. Cahier Series, 8. Illustrated by Lanfranco Quadrio. Paris: American University / Sylph Editions, 2008.
Plan B. Photographs by Norman McBeath. London: Enitharmon, 2009.
Wayside Shrines. Illustrated by Keith Wilson. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 2009.

Drama:

Shining Brow. London: Faber, 1993.
Six Honest Serving Men. Gallery Press, 1995.
Bandanna: An Opera in Two Acts and a Prologue. London: Faber, 1999.
Aristophanes. The Birds (adaptation). Gallery Press, 1999.
Vera of Las Vegas. Gallery Press, 2001.

Translated:

Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. The Astrakhan Cloak. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1993.
Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill. The Fifty Minute Mermaid. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 2007.

Children's Books:

The O-O's Party, New Year's Eve. County Meath, Ireland: Gallery Press, 1980.
The Last Thesaurus. Illustrations by Rodney Rigby. London: Faber, 1995.
The Noctuary of Narcissus Batt. Illustrations by Markéta Prachatická. London: Faber, 1997.
Reverse Flannery: Magical Tales of Ireland. New York: Random House, 2003.

Edited:

The Scrake of Dawn: Poems by Young People from Northern Ireland. Belfast: Blackstaff Press in association with the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, 1979.
The Faber Book of Contemporary Irish Poetry. London: Faber, 1986.
The Essential Byron. New York: Ecco Press, 1989.
The Faber Book of Beasts. London: Faber, 1997.
The Oxford and Cambridge May Anthologies 2000: Poetry. Oxford & Cambridge: Varsity / Cherwell, 2000.
The Best American Poetry 2005. Guest Editor Paul Muldoon. Series Editor David Lehmann. New York: Scribner, 2005.

Prose:

The End of the Poem: 'All Souls Night' by W. B. Yeats. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
To Ireland, I. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
The End of the Poem: Oxford Lectures in Poetry. London: Faber, 2006.

Secondary Literature:

Holdridge, Jefferson.The Poetry of Paul Muldoon. Dublin: The Liffey Press, 2008.

•

Poet 4:

2009-07-21T10:40:00.011+12:00

[Graham Lindsay]

Graham Lindsay
(b. 1952)

Graham Lindsay was born in Wellington in 1952. He was educated at the University of Canterbury (BA, 1976) and the Christchurch College of Education (Diploma of Teaching, 1989). He has since worked in a variety of short-term or part-time jobs including driving, library work and teaching. He has two sons and one grandson and lives in England.

His first book, Thousand-Eyed Eel, an account of the historic Māori land march of 1975, appeared from Alan Loney’s Hawk Press in 1976. Since then he has published six more collections of poems. He also edited the magazine Morepork from 1979 to 1980.

He has read at a number of literary festivals and his poems have appeared widely in anthologies.

[Seeing Voices]

Author Pages:

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

NZ Book Council

nzepc

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Thousand-Eyed Eel. Taylors Mistake: Hawk Press, 1976.
Public. Dunedin: Ridge-Pole, 1980.
Big Boy. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986.
Return to Earth. Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1991.
The Subject. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994.
Legend of the Cool Secret. Christchurch: Sudden Valley Press, 1999.
Lazy Wind Poems. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003.

Edited:

Morepork. 1-3. Dunedin: Ridge-Pole (1979-80).

•

Poet 3:

2009-07-20T08:34:00.009+12:00

[Michele Leggott (2008)]

Michele Leggott
(b. 1956)

Michele Leggott, poet, critic and editor, was born in Stratford, Taranaki, and educated at New Plymouth High School and the University of Canterbury (MA in English 1979 for a thesis on the poetry of Ian Wedde). She spent 1980–85 in Canada completing a PhD on American poet Louis Zukofsky at the University of British Columbia. In 1985 she was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Auckland.

Her first book of poems, Like This? (1988) won the PEN First Book of Poetry award. DIA (1994) won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. In her next collection As Far as I Can See (1999), Leggott wrote about the experience of losing her sight through macular degeneration.

Much of her critical work has been concerned with the submerged tradition of women poets in New Zealand. In line with this, she has edited Robin Hyde's The Book of Nadath (1999) and Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde (2003).

She was the National Library's inaugural Poet Laureate of NZ for 2008-2009, and was made MNZM [Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit] in the New Year's Honours in 2008.

[Joanna Forsberg:
Michele Leggott]

Author Pages:

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

NZ Book Council

nzepc

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Like This?. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1988.
Swimmers, Dancers. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1991.
DIA. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994.
as far as I can see. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999.
Milk and Honey. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2005 / Cambridge: Salt, 2006.
Journey to Portugal. Collages by Gretchen Albrecht. Auckland: Holloway Press, 2007.
Mirabile Dictu. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2009.
Northland. Auckland: Pania Press, 2010.

Criticism:

Reading Zukofsky’s 80 Flowers. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989.

Edited:

Opening the Book: New Essays on New Zealand Writing. Ed. with Mark Williams. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995.
Robin Hyde. The Victory Hymn, 1935–1995. Auckland: Holloway Press, 1995.
Robin Hyde. The Book of Nadath. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999.
Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960-1975. Ed. with Alan Brunton & Murray Edmond. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2000.
Robin Hyde. Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003.
nzepc [New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre] (2003- )
NZ Poet Laureate blog (15/1/08-20/7/09)

•

Poet 2:

2009-07-14T09:31:00.015+12:00

[Mimi Gross: Susan Howe]

Susan Howe
(b. 1937)

Susan Howe is an American poet and critic who has been closely associated with the Language poets, among others. Her work has often been classified as Postmodern, and it expands traditional notions of genre (fiction, essay, poetry). Her books are layered with historical, mythical and other references, and contain lyrical echos of sound yet they are never pinned down by a consistent metrical pattern or traditional poetic rhyme scheme.

Howe was born in Boston and grew up in nearby Cambridge. Her mother, Mary Louise Manning, was Irish and wrote plays and acted for the Abbey Theatre. Her father, Mark DeWolfe Howe, was a professor at Harvard Law School. Howe graduated from the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts (1961). She was married to the painter, Harvey Quaytman, with whom she had a daughter, Rebecca. She was married to her second husband, sculptor David von Schlegell, until his death (1992). Her third husband, Peter Hewitt Hare, a noted philosopher and Professor at the University of Buffalo, died in January 2008. She lives in Guilford, Connecticut and is currently a Fall 2009 Anna-Maria Kellen Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin, where she is working on her newest poetic sequence A Collection of Poems and Essays.

[Susan Howe]

Author Pages:

EPC/Susan Howe Homepage

Modern American Poetry

Poetry Foundation

Poets.org

Sound Recording

[LINEbreak Electronic Poetry Center]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Hinge Picture. New York: Cherry Valley/Telephone Books, 1974.
Chanting at the Crystal Sea. Boston, MA: Fire Exit/Corbett, 1975.
The Western Borders. Willits, CA: Tuumba, 1976.
Secret History of the Dividing Line. New York: Telephone Books, 1978.
Cabbage Gardens. Chicago, IL: Fathom, 1979.
Deep in a Forest of Herods. New Haven, CT: Pharos, 1979.
The Liberties. Guilford, CT: Loon, 1980.
Pythagorean Silence. New York: Montemora Foundation, 1982.
Defenestration of Prague. New York: Kulchur Foundation, 1983.
Articulation of Sound Forms in Time. Windsor, VT: Awede, 1987.
A Bibliography of the King's Book, or, Eikon Basilke. Providence, RI: Paradigm, 1989.
The Europe of Trusts: Selected Poems. Los Angeles, CA: Sun & Moon, 1990.
Singularities. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1990.
The Nonconformist's Memorial. Limited edition with illustrations by Robert Mangold,. New York: Gren Fell Press, 1992 / New York: New Directions, 1993.
Frame Structures: Early Poems, 1974-79. New York: New Directions, 1996.
Pierce-Arrow. New York: New Directions, 1999.
Bed Hangings. Pictures by Susan Bee. New York: Granary Books, 2001.
The Midnight. New York: New Directions, 2003.
Souls of the Labadie Tract. New York: New Directions, 2007.

Prose:

My Emily Dickinson. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic, 1985.
Incloser. Santa Fe, NM: Weaselsleeves Press, 1992.
The Birth-Mark: Unsettling the Wilderness in American Literary History. Hanover, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

Secondary Literature:

Back, Rachel Tzvia. Led by Language: The Poetry and Poetics of Susan Howe. Modern & Contemporary Poetics. Birmingham: University of Alabama Press, 2002.
Collis, Stephen. Through Words of Others: Susan Howe and Anarcho-Scholasticism. E L S Monograph Series. Victoria, BC: ELS Editions, 2007.
Montgomery, William. The Poetry of Susan Howe: History, Theology, Authority. Modern and Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. New York & London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Quartermain, Peter. Disjunctive Poetics: From Gertrude Stein and Louis Zukofsky to Susan Howe. Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

•

Poet 1:

2009-07-13T12:37:00.017+12:00

[Fiona Farrell]

Fiona Farrell
(b. 1947)

Fiona Farrell was born in Oamaru and educated in Otago and Toronto, where she wrote her thesis on T. S. Eliot and poetic drama. Her publications include three collections of poetry (Cutting Out in 1987, The Inhabited Initial in 1999 and The Pop-up Book of Invasions in 2007), two collections of short stories (The Rock Garden, 1989, and Light Readings, 2001) and six novels (most recently Limestone, 2009). The Hopeful Traveller, Book Book, and The Pop-up Book of Invasions were all shortlisted for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards in (respectively) 2003, 2005 and 2008.

She was writer-in-residence at Canterbury University in 1992, received the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship to Menton, France in 1995, and held the inaugural Rathcoola Residency in Donoughmore, Ireland in 2006. She also participated in New Zealand Book Council Words on Wheels tours in 1993, 1997 and 2001. Her poems and stories have been widely anthologised. She has appeared at several festivals, including the Edinburgh Festival and the Vancouver International Writers and Readers Festival in 2006. In 2007 Fiona Farrell was the recipient of the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement for services to New Zealand literature, in Fiction.

[Fiona Farrell]

Author Pages:

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

Author's Homepage

NZ Book Council

nzepc

[nzepc]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Cutting Out. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1987.
The Inhabited Initial. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999.
The Pop-up Book of Invasions. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007.

Drama:

Passengers. Wellington: Playmarket, 1986.
Song of the Shirt: Three One-act Plays for Young Actors. With Paula Boock and Renee. Dunedin: John McIndoe, 1993.

Prose:

The Rock Garden: Stories. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1989.
The Skinny Louie Book. Auckland: Penguin New Zealand, 1992.
Six Clever Girls Who Became Famous Women. Auckland: Penguin New Zealand, 1996.
Light Readings: Stories. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2001.
The Hopeful Traveller. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2002.
Book Book. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2004.
Mr Allbones' Ferrets. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2007.
Limestone. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2009.

Edited:

The Best New Zealand Fiction. Vol. 4. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2007.

Secondary Literature:

Fiona Farrell in Conversation with Iain Sharp, in Words Chosen Carefully: New Zealand Writers in Discussion. Ed. Siobhan Harvey. Photography by Liz March (Auckland: Cape Catley Ltd., 2010): 262-82.

•

NZ Fiction (back-up 2)

2009-05-14T08:44:00.013+12:00

2010:

Nigel Cox: Dirty Work (1987)

Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip (2006)

Carl Shuker: The Lazy Boys (2006)

Alice Tawhai: Luminous (2007)

•

[Kiwi Comics Writers Pages]

Dylan Horrocks (b.1966)

Author Pages:

Hicksville (Author's Homepage)

Kiwi Comics

Wikipedia entry

Bibliography:

Comics:

Horrocks, Dylan. Hicksville: A Comic Book. 1998. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2001.

[Horrocks, Dylan. Introduction to the New Edition. Hicksville: A Comic Book. 1998. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly Publications, 2010. i-xiii.]

Horrocks, Dylan, & Richard Case. The Names of Magic. 2001. New York: Vertigo/DC Comics, 2002.

•

[Lloyd Jones (2008)]

Lloyd Jones
(b. 1955)

Lloyd Jones was born in Lower Hutt. A highly-regarded writer working in both fiction and non-fiction, in 2007 Lloyd won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, the Montana Medal for Fiction and Reader’s Choice Award, and the Kiriyama Prize for his novel Mister Pip. It was also shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. In 2008, Lloyd was made an Arts Laureate and received a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement. A volume of Lloyd’s selected stories, The Man in the Shed is due out in 2009 from Penguin Books.

[Sydney Morning Herald
(Photograph: Domino Postiglione)]

Author Pages:

NZ Book Council

NZ Literature File

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Fiction:

Gilmore's Dairy. Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1985.
Splinter. Auckland: Hodder and Stoughton, 1988.
Swimming to Australia and Other Stories. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1991.
This House Has Three Walls. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1997.
Choo Woo. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1998.
Book of Fame. Auckland: Penguin, 2000.
Here at the End of the World We Learn to Dance. Auckland: Penguin, 2002.
Paint your Wife. Auckland: Penguin, 2004.
Mister Pip. Melbourne: Text Publishing Company, 2006.
The Man in the Shed: Selected Stories. Melbourne: Penguin, 2009.

Non-Fiction:

Biografi: an Albanian Quest. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1993.
Last Saturday. Photographs by Bruce Foster. Wellington: Victoria University Press for the National Library of New Zealand, 1994.
Beach. Photographs by Jocelin Carlin. Auckland: Bateman, 1999.

Children's Books:

Napoleon and the Chicken Farmer. Illustrated by Graeme Gash. Wellington: Mallinson Rendel, 2003.
Everything You Need to Know About the World by Simon Eliot. New York: St. Martin's Press / Griffin, 2004.

Edited:

Into the Field of Play: New Zealand Writers on the Theme of Sport. Edited by Lloyd Jones. Auckland: Tandem Press, 1992.
Four Winds Essay Series. Series Editor Lloyd Jones:

On kissing. By Kate Camp. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2002.
On longing. By Vincent O'Sullivan. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2002.
When famous people come to town. By Damien Wilkins. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2002.
On make-up and makeover. By Paula Boock. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
Tracing the Arc. By John Saker. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
On writing hit songs. By Simon Morris. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
Biography of a local palate. By David Burton. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
Under the influence. By Bill Manhire. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2003.
What makes a teacher? By Jack Lasenby. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
These lives I have buried. By Lindsay Rabbitt. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
Ghost who writes. By Martin Edmond. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
Jumping Ship. By Glenn Colquhoun. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
How To Live Elsewhere. By Harry Ricketts. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
On Reading. By Lydia Wevers. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2004.
On Getting Old. By Kevin Ireland. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2005.
On Going to the Movies. By Peter Wells. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2005.
Next to Gods: a Cleaner's Story. By Don Franks. Wellington: Four Winds Press, 2005.

Secondary Literature:

Norridge, Zoe. “From Wellington to Bougainville: Migrating Meanings and the Joys of Approximation in Lloyd Jones' Mister Pip. The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 45 (2010): 57-74.

•

[Carl Shuker]

Carl Shuker
(b. 1974)

Carl Shuker writes full-time and lives in London. He is a graduate of the University of Canterbury and holds a Masters in Creative Writing from Victoria University of Wellington.

In 2006 Shuker was awarded the Prize in Modern Letters for his first novel, The Method Actors. The novel began as a manuscript for Shuker’s Masters in Creative Writing and draws on his time spent living in Tokyo. Infamously rejected by New Zealand publishers, the novel was published in 2005 by American publisher Shoemaker & Hoard.

A second novel, The Lazy Boys, was published in 2006.

[Homepage]

Author Pages:

Author's Homepage

NZ Book Council

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Fiction:

The Method Actors: A Novel. USA: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2005 / Auckland: Penguin, 2006.
The Lazy Boys: A Novel. USA: Counterpoint, 2006 / Auckland: Penguin, 2006.

•

NZ Fiction (back-up 1)

2009-05-12T08:55:00.015+12:00

2008:

Nigel Cox: Dirty Work (1987)

Emma Neale: Relative Strangers (2006)
also The Book of Fame

Charlotte Randall: Within the Kiss (2002)

Alice Tawhai: Luminous (2007)

•

[Nigel Cox]

Nigel Cox
(1951-2006)

Nigel Cox was born in Pahiatua and grew up in the Wairarapa and Lower Hutt. His early working life was varied: advertising account executive, assembly line worker at Ford, deck hand, coalman, door-to-door turkey salesman, driver. Eventually, in the UK, he found his way into the book world, working for many years as a bookseller and a freelance writer. The author of six novels, Cox was awarded the Buckland Literary Award in 1988 and the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship in 1991. Cox was senior writer for the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, before moving to Berlin as Head of Communication and Interpretation at the Jewish Museum. Nigel Cox passed away in 2006 after a long illness.

[NZ Listener (2006)]

Author Pages:

NZ Book Council

NZ Literature File

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Fiction:

Waiting for Einstein. Auckland: Benton Ross, 1984.
Dirty Work. Auckland: Benton Ross, 1987 / Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006.
Skylark Lounge. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2000.
Tarzan Presley. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2004.
Responsibility. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2005.
Cowboy Dog. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006.

Non-fiction:

Phone Home Berlin: Collected Non-fiction. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2007.

Secondary Literature:

Lawn, Jennifer. "'Capitalism for New Entrants': Rogernomics and the Literary Critique of Neoliberalism." Journal of Postcolonial Cultures and Societies 1.1 (January 2010): 45-55.

•

[NZ Book Council Writers Pages]

Emma Neale (b.1969)

Author Pages:

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

NZ Book Council

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Sleeve-notes. Auckland: Godwit, 1999.
How to Make a Million. Auckland: Godwit, 2002.
Double Jointed. [with Rob Allan, John Allison, Claire Beynon, John Dolan, Larry Matthews, Martha Morseth, James Norcliffe, Peter Olds, Jenny Powell-Chalmers and Trevor Reeves]. Wellington: Inkweed, 2003.
Spark. Wellington: Steele Roberts, 2007.

Fiction:

Night Swimming. Auckland: Random House, 1998/Australia: Anchor, 1999.
Little Moon. Auckland: Random House, 2001.
Double Take. Auckland: Random House, 2003.
Relative Strangers. Auckland: Random House, 2006.

Edited:

Creative Juices. Auckland: Flamingo, 2002.
Best New Zealand Poems 2004. Wellington: IIML, 2004.
Swings and Roundabouts. Auckland: Godwit, 2008.

•

[NZ Book Council Writers Pages]

Charlotte Randall

Author Pages:

NZ Book Council

Bibliography:

Novels:

Dead Sea Fruit (1995)
The Curative (Penguin Books, 2000)
Within The Kiss (Penguin Books, 2002)
What Happen Then, Mr Bones? (Penguin Books, 2004)

•

[Alice Tawhai]

Alice Tawhai

Author Pages:

Huia Publishers Homepage

Bibliography:

Stories:

Festival of Miracles (Huia, 2005)
Luminous (Huia, 2007)

•

NZ Poets (back-up)

2009-05-11T07:56:00.009+12:00

[Michael Harlow (2009)]

Michael Harlow
(b. 1937)

Michael Harlow was born in the United States. His father was Greek and his mother American-Ukrainian. He emigrated to New Zealand in 1968. He has published seven books of poetry, including Giotto's Elephant, which was a finalist in the National Book Awards in 1991. He has also published short prose in various literary journals and anthologies. He was the Katharine Mansfield Fellow in Menton, France in 1986, the New Zealand-Australia Literary Exchange Fellow in 1991, the 2004 Randall Cottage Writer-in-Residence in Wellington, and the Robert Burns Fellow at Otago University for 2009.

He has written a short film, Heavy Traffic in the Dark, in collaboration with film-maker Stephanie Donald, and has also composed the libretto for a Performance Work, The Tower of Babel, presented at the International Arts Festival in St Petersburg in 1995.

At present he lives and works in Central Otago as a writer and Jungian Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist. His latest book of poems, The Tram-Conductor's Blue Cap, was published by Auckland University Press in 2009.

[nzepc]

Author Pages:

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

NZ Book Council

nzepc

[NZ Book Council]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Poems. Athens: Agora Press, 1965.
Edges. Athens: Lycabettus Press, 1974.
Nothing but Switzerland and Lemonade. Eastbourne: Hawk Press, 1980.
Today is the Piano’s Birthday. Auckland: Auckland / Oxford University Press, 1981.
Vlaminck’s Tie. Auckland: Auckland / Oxford University Press, 1985.
Giotto’s Elephant. Dunedin: John McIndoe, 1991.
Cassandra’s Daughter. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2005.
The Tram Conductor's Blue Cap. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2009.

Texts / Libretti:

Devotion to the Small (1980/81). Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press, 1988.

Prose:

Take a Risk, Trust Your Language, Make a Poem. Edited by Christodoulos E. G. Moisa. Christchurch Teachers College Press, 1985.

Edited:

Frontiers. Christchurch 1968-69.
Omphalos. Athens 1970-73.
Events, Greece 1967-1974. Athens: Anglo-Hellenic Publishing, 1975.
Landfall (Associate and Poetry Editor) Christchurch 1976-84.
Caxton Press Poetry Series. Books by Tony Beyer, Murray Edmond, Bernadette Hall, Rob Jackaman, Hugh Lauder, Michele Leggott, Gregory O’Brien, 1985-90.
Say It With Words. Christchurch: Caxton Educational Press, 1991.

•

AoNZPSA
[photo: Jan Kemp (2002)]

Anne Kennedy (b.1959)

Author Pages

Auckland University New Zealand Literature File

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

New Zealand Book Council Writer Files

New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre

Scottish Poetry Library

Bibliography:

Kennedy, Anne. 100 Traditional Smiles. Illustrations by Sally Rodwell. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 1988.

Kennedy, Anne. Musica Ficta. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993.

Kennedy, Anne. A Boy & His Uncle. Sydney: Picador, 1998.

Kennedy, Anne. Sing-song. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003.

Kennedy, Anne. The Time of the Giants. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2005.

•

AoNZPSA

Bill Manhire (b. 1946)

Author Pages

Auckland University New Zealand Literature File

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

New Zealand Book Council Writer Files

New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre

Scottish Poetry Library

Bibliography

Manhire, Bill. The New Land: A Picture Book. Pacific Writers Series. Auckland: Heinemann Reed, 1990.

Manhire, Bill. Songs of My Life. Auckland: Godwit, 1996.

Manhire, Bill. Collected Poems. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2001.

•

AoNZPSA

Richard von Sturmer (b. 1957)

Author Pages

Aotearoa New Zealand Poetry Sound Archive

New Zealand Book Council Writer Files

New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre

Auckland Zen centre

Bibliography:

von Sturmer, Richard. We Xerox Your Zebras. Auckland: Modern House, 1988.

von Sturmer, Richard. A Network of Dissolving Threads. Drawings by Derek Ward. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1991.

von Sturmer, Richard. G1949: Writing in the Present Moment (Auckland University: Continuing Education, 2003).

von Sturmer, Richard. Suchness: Zen Poetry and Prose. Wellington: HeadworX, 2005.

von Sturmer, Richard. 26 Tanka Films. Auckland: P.S. Films, 2007.

von Sturmer, Richard. On the Eve of Never Departing. Auckland: Titus Books, 2009.

Rubble Emits Light: "Both Sides of Street" (essay by Gabriel White) / "Tanka Film Verses" (by Richard von Sturmer). Exhibition 15 July-13 August, 2010. Auckland: The Film Archive, 2009.

•

International Poets (back-up)

2009-05-09T08:55:00.017+12:00

KSU Faculty website

John Ashbery (b. 1927)

Author Pages:

The Ashbery Resource Centre

Poetry Foundation.org

Wikipedia

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Ashbery, John. The Mooring of Starting Out: The First Five Books of Poetry. Hopewell, New Jersey: The Ecco Press, 1997.

Ashbery, John. Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror: Poems. 1975. New York: Penguin, 1976.

Ashbery, John. Three Books: Houseboat Days, Shadow Train, A Wave. 1977, 1981, & 1984. New York: Penguin, 1993.

Ashbery, John. Selected Poems. 1986. London: Paladin, 1987.

Ashbery, John. Flow Chart. New York: The Noonday Press / Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991.

Ashbery, John. Girls on the Run: A Poem. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1999.

Ashbery, John. your name here: Poems. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2000.

Ashbery, John. Notes from the Air: Selected Later Poems. 2007. New York: Ecco, 2008.

Ashbery, John. Collected Poems, 1956-1987. Ed. Mark Ford. The Library of America, 187. New York: Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., 2008.

Fiction:

Ashbery, John, & James Schuyler. A Nest of Ninnies. 1969. Manchester: Carcanet, 1987.

•

[Anne Carson]

Anne Carson
(b. 1950)

Anne Carson is a Canadian poet, essayist, and translator. Carson lived in Montreal for several years and taught at McGill University. She was twice a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award; was honored with the 1996 Lannan Award and the 1997 Pushcart Prize, both for poetry; and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2000. In 2001 she received the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry – the first woman to do so; the Griffin Poetry Prize; and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She currently teaches Classics and comparative literature at the University of Michigan.

[Quebec authors]

Author Pages:

Poetry Foundation

Poets.org

Wikipedia

Readings & Performances:

Anne Carson with Brighde Mullins (21 March 2001) [extract]

Anne Carson with Brighde Mullins (21 March 2001) [41' 47"]

Geffen Playhouse Reading (17 May 2008) [9'43"]

Griffin Poetry Prize Citation & Reading from Decreation (22 January 2009) [5'17"]

Recipe [extract]

A Lecture on Pronouns in the Form of 15 Sonnets (26 March 2008) [7'05"]

[Poetry International Web]

Bibliography:

Poetry:

Glass, Irony, and God. New York: New Directions, 1992.
Short Talks. USA: Brick Books, 1992.
Plainwater: Essays and Poetry. New York: Knopf, 1995.
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse. New York: Knopf, 1998.
Men in the Off Hours. New York: Knopf, 2001.
The Beauty of the Husband. New York: Knopf, 2002.
Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Nox. New York: New Directions, 2010.

Translation:

If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. New York: Knopf, 2002.
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides. New York: Knopf, 2006.
An Oresteia: Agamemnon by Aiskhylos; Elektra by Sophokles; Orestes by Euripides. New York: Faber & Faber, Inc., 2009.

Critical:

Eros the Bittersweet. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Economy of the Unlost: Reading Simonides of Ceos with Paul Celan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

•

Poems Out Loud
[Photo: Harold Schecter]

Kimiko Hahn (b. 1955)

Author Pages:

Heath Anthology Author Page

Wikipedia page

Bibliography:

Hahn, Kimiko. The Narrow Road to the Interior: Poems. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2006.

•

[Dorothy Porter]

Dorothy Porter (1954-2008)

Author Pages

Poetry International Web

Wikipedia

Wikispaces

Bibliography:

Porter, Dorothy. The Monkey’s Mask. Auckland: Vintage New Zealand, 1994.

Porter, Dorothy. Akhenaten. Illustrations by John Hockings. UQP Poetry. 1992. St Lucia, Queensland: University of Queensland Press, 1993.

•

Assessment

2009-05-08T08:43:00.015+12:00

[Homework]

NB: This is a 30-point paper, 100 percent internally assessed.

The work you submit should adhere to the following guidelines:

Typed.
Double-spaced.
Written on one side only of A4 sheets.
Margins at least 2.5 cm (1 inch) all around (including top and bottom).

Assignments can be posted physically either to Dr Mary Paul (Fiction) or Dr Jack Ross (Poetry) at:

School of Social and Cultural Studies
Massey University
Albany Campus
Pvt Bag 102 904
North Shore Mail Centre
Auckland

Most of you will probably prefer to post them electronically on our dedicated Massey University Stream page, though.

The marks will be divided up as follows:

Creative Response: 20%
Journal: 20%
2 Seminars: 10% each
Final Assignment: 40%

•

Creative Response
Worth: 20%
Due in: 23rd April
Length: up to 3 pages / 1,000 words

This is the first piece you will be handing in. We invite you to take off on a creative tangent from one of the authors or pieces of writing presented in the course. Your own piece might take the form of a poem or poetic sequence, a piece of fiction, a script, or even a picture or pagework.

Journal
Worth: 20%
Due in: 28th May / 15th October
Length: up to 3,000 words (in final form)

This should be a series of thoughts and reactions to the materials and ideas covered in the course kept throughout the year. We expect at least some reaction to each of the authors, presented either as straight journal entries or in the form of an online blog.

You will be asked to submit your journal twice in the year. The first time for general reactions and comment, the second time for assessment.

2 Seminars
Worth: 20%
Length: up to 3 pages / 1,000 words each

You will be asked to give two seminars in the course of the year – one on a poetry text and the other on a prose text. You will be asked to choose two time slots and two authors during the first block-course weekend. It's important to avoid a log-jam in the last session, so we'll try to have at least three presenters assigned for each day of the subsequent three weekends.

Each seminar should be roughly ten minutes long, with an additional ten or so minutes set aside for questions - never more than a half-hour in total. Think of it more as a book-report focussing on points of interest than a finished critical piece.

Your seminar should: outline the issues raised by your reading of the text, indicate some of the approaches you found to it, and find ways to interest and engage your audience in the material.

The seminars will be assessed in terms of content and presentation but you will not be required to present them in written form. They can also contain material that you will develop further in your Research Essay.

Final Assignment
Worth: 40%
Due in: 15th October
Length: up to 4,000 words

This is your major piece of work for the year:

It can be an extended literary-critical examination of one (or more) of the authors, works or themes discussed during the year.

Alternatively, you might like to take a more creative approach and do a piece of writing (perhaps in the manner of Susan Howe or Anne Carson) which incorporates research and innovative form.

Bibliography

2009-05-07T09:20:00.017+12:00

[Skip Wastemaster: Natural Beauty (2008)]

Categories:

Prescribed Texts: Fiction
Prescribed Texts: Poetry
Recommended Further Reading: Poetry
Recommended Further Reading: Fiction

Prescribed Texts:

[NZ Book Cake]

Fiction

Cox, Nigel. Dirty Work. 1987. Wellington: VUP, 2006.

Jones, Lloyd. Mr Pip. Auckland: Penguin, 2006.

Shuker, Carl. The Lazy Boys: A Novel. Auckland: Penguin, 2006.

Tawhai, Alice. Luminous. Auckland: Huia, 2007.

Poetry

Book of Readings [available from the School of English and Media Studies]

Green, Paula, & Harry Ricketts. 99 Ways into New Zealand Poetry. A Vintage Book. Auckland: Random House New Zealand, 2010.

Recommended Further Reading:

[Poetry shelf]

Poetry

The poetry section of this course has to range somewhat more widely than the prose, both chronologically and geographically, in order to make much sense. We'll begin by considering the evolution and antecedents of the (so-called) Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E, after the title of their main periodical) Poets of the 70s and 80s, but from there we'll be forced to examine a number of different movements, ideologies and techniques.

I've included a number of fairly comprehensive anthologies in this bibliography. Their introductions often contain useful insights into the evolution of poetic practice over the period we're considering: roughly, the last two to three decades of writing in New Zealand and internationally. They also have the added advantage of giving you a chance to sample the wide range of poetry available in English today.

There's a more specific booklist available on each of the author pages on this site. This Bibliography page is therefore mainly confined to more general works. I've divided them (roughly) into geographical regions for convenience, but obviously there's a good deal of overlap in the material covered by some of them.

It will continue to grow over the span of the course, so please do write in with any suggestions or criticisms you have.

- Dr Jack Ross

UK
- Astley, Neil, ed. In Person: 30 Poets. Filmed by Pamela Robertson-Pearce. With 2 DVDs. Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2008.
- Broom, Sarah. Contemporary British and Irish Poetry: An Introduction. Houndmills, Basingstoke & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
- Horovitz, Michael, ed. Children of Albion – Poetry of the ‘Underground’ in Britain. 1969. The Penguin Poets. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1971.

USA
- Allen, Donald, & Warren Tallman, ed. The Poetics of the New American Poetry. New York: Grove Press, 1973.
- Allen, Donald, & George F. Butterick, ed. The Postmoderns: The New American Poetry Revised. New York: Grove Press, 1982.
- Bernstein, Charles. A Poetics. 1992. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1998.
- Hoover, Paul, ed. Postmodern American Poetry. A Norton Anthology. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1994.
- Weinberger, Eliot, ed. American Poetry since 1950: Innovators and Outsiders. An Anthology. New York: Marsilio Publishers, 1993.

NZ
- Alley, Elizabeth, & Mark Williams, ed. In the Same Room: Conversations with New Zealand Writers. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1992.
- Bornholdt, Jenny, Gregory O’Brien, & Mark Williams, ed. An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English. 1997. Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1998.
- Brunton, Alan, Murray Edmond & Michele Leggott. Big Smoke: New Zealand Poems 1960-1975. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2000.
- Edmond, Murray, & Mary Paul, ed. The New Poets: Initiatives in New Zealand Poetry. Wellington: Allen & Unwin New Zealand / Port Nicholson Press, 1987.
- Harvey, Siobhan, ed. Words Chosen Carefully: New Zealand Writers in Discussion. Photography by Liz March. Auckland: Cape Catley Ltd., 2010.
- Johnstone, Andrew, & Robyn Marsack, ed. Twenty Contemporary New Zealand Poets: An Anthology. Manchester: Carcanet, 2009.
- Loney, Alan. Reading / Saying / Making: Selected Essays. Auckland: The Writers Group, 2001.
- O’Brien, Greg. Moments of Invention: Portraits of 21 New Zealand Writers. Photographs by Robert Cross. Auckland: Heinemann Reed, 1988.
- Ricketts, Harry. Talking about Ourselves: Twelve New Zealand Poets in Conversation with Harry Ricketts. Wellington: Mallinson Rendell, 1986.
- Ross, Jack, ed. Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance. Poems Selected by Jack Ross & Jan Kemp. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006.
- Ross, Jack, & Jan Kemp, ed. Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2007.
- Ross, Jack, ed. New New Zealand Poets in Performance. Poems Selected by Jack Ross & Jan Kemp. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2008.
- Wedde, Ian, & Harvey McQueen, ed. The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse. 1985. Auckland: Penguin, 1987.
- Wedde, Ian, Miriama Evans & Harvey McQueen, ed. The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry: Ngā Kupu Tītohu o Aotearoa. 1985. Auckland: Penguin, 1989.
- Williams, Mark, & Michele Leggott, ed. Opening the Book: New Essays on New Zealand Writing. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995.

[Beattie's Book Blog]

Fiction

In thinking about the context of these four novels we are spanning twenty years of writing experimentation and innovation, as well as social change and diversification, from the late eighties - when Nigel Cox published his first novel Dirty Work in 1987 - to Luminous by Alice Tawhai published (Huia Press) in 2007.

This paper challenges you to see each of these novels and perhaps the range or trajectory of them in relation to international developments, whether in events or in writing and ideas. We are accustomed to understand literature as both reflecting and refracting the world – and having an influence back on it. So what reflections and refractions happen here?

Recent historical and cultural studies of NZ are re-positioning the country in terms of its being a typical settler society – similar to other settler societies, or similar to mid-century culture in the UK and the USA in its Puritanism and modernist masculinist high culture, This approach is unlike an earlier stress on NZ nationalism or NZ’s special character (on its “exceptionalism” in Miles Fairburn’s phrase).

Thinking in these terms NZ’s experience of ideological change from the late 1970s must be linked with equivalent shifts across the world. Those changes include neoliberal economics, globalisation and developments in ethnic and indigenous consciousness and communities. But they also includes shifts in fashion, aesthetics, family, gender, relationship, community and the environment – which may or may not be able to be linked with economic and ideological developments. These are the kinds of questions that theorists of globalisation and ethnicity debate.

This paper aims to get you enjoying and interpreting novels and poetry in this wider international context as part of ‘World Literature’ - we could call it. Your challenge is to discover and test what discourses or texts can fruitfully link with the novels and poetry you are reading. The selected bibliography here points at some possibilities and connections. Specific review and profile information about the individual writers is available on the website but you will also need search and research in these and related areas.

- Dr Mary Paul

Globalisation and Ethnicity
- Bauman, Zygmunt. Postmodernity and its Discontents. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1997.
- ---. Community: Seeking Safety in an Insecure World. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001
- ---. Liquid Love. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003.
- Bauman, Zygmunt and Milena Yakimova. A Postmodern Grid of the Worldmap? Interview with Zygmunt Bauman (11/8/2007).<>.
- Croucher, Sheila, L. Globalization and Belonging: The Politics of Identity in a Changing World. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
- Joseph, Clara and Janet Wilson. “Introduction.” Global Fissures Postcolonial Fusions. Ed. Clara A. B. Joseph and Janet Wilson. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2006. xi-xxv.
- Hall, Stuart. “The Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity.” Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives. Eds. Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 173-187.
- Kraus, Wolfgang. “The Narrative Negotiation of Identity and Belonging.” Narrative Inquiry 16 (2006): 103-111.
- Lazarus, Neil. “The Global Dispensation Since 1945.” The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies. Ed. Neil Lazarus. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004. 19-40.
- Zhang, Xudong. “Multiplicity or Homogeniety? The Cultural Paradox of the Age of Globalisation.” Cultural Critique 58 (2004): 30-55.
- Zizek, Slavoj. The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology. London: Verso, 1999.

Postcolonialism
- Ashcroft, Bill, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. Eds. The Post-Colonial Reader. London: Routledge, 1995.
- Bhabha, Homi K. “The World and the Home.” Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives. Eds. Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. 445-455.
- ----. The Location of Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1994.
- During, Simon. “Postcolonialism and Globalization: towards a historicization of their Interrelation.” Cultural Studies 14 (3/4) 2000. 385-404.

Neoliberalism
- Bhargh, Maria. “Introduction.” Resistance: An Indigenous Response to Neoliberalism. Ed. Maria Bargh. Wellington: Huia, 2007. 1-24.
- Duncan, Grant. Society and Politics: New Zealand Social Policy. Second Edition. Auckland: Pearson, 2007.
- Kelsey, Jane. At the Crossroads: Three Essays. Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2002.
- Shaw, Kirsten. “Neoliberalism and Social Patterns: Constructions of Home and Community in Contemporary NZ Fiction.” Master’s thesis. Massey, Albany, 2007.
- Smith, Cheryl. “Cultures of Collecting.” Resistance: An Indigenous Response to Neoliberalism. Ed. Maria Bargh. Wellington: Huia, 2007. 65-74.
- Somerville, Alice Te Punga. “’If I Close my Mouth I will Die’: Writing, Resisting, Centring.” Resistance: An Indigenous Response to Neoliberalism. Ed. Maria Bargh. Wellington: Huia, 2007. 85-114.
- Spencer, Robert. “The Price of Silence.” Global Fissures Postcolonial Fusions. Ed. Clara A. B. Joseph and Janet Wilson. Amsterdam/New York: Rodopi, 2006. 17-52.
- Stewart-Harawera, Makere. The New Imperial Order: Indigenous Responses to Globalisation. Wellington: Huia, 2005.

Postmodernism and Magic Realism: The New Exotics
- Carter, Angela. Nights at the Circus.
- Barnes, Julian ['Dan Kavanagh'].
- Bruce Chatwin

Criticism
- Waugh, Patricia. The Harvest of the Sixties: English Literature and the Background 1960 to 1990.Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995.

Local Criticism
- Collingwood-Whittick, Shelia. (ed). The Pain of Unbelonging: Alienation and Identity in Australasian Literature. Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, 2007.
- Corballis, Tim and Chris Price. “Writing that Matters: Two Views of the Place of Politics in Literature.” Writing at the Edge of the Universe. Ed. Mark Williams. Christchurch: Canterbury UP, 2004. 49-67.
- Evans, Patrick. “Resisting” in The Long Forgetting: Post-colonial Literary Culture in New Zealand.
- Evans, Patrick. “’Pakeha-Style Biculutralism’ and the Maori Writer.” Journal of New Zealand Literature 24 (2006): 11-35.
- Jones, Lawrence. Barbed Wire and Mirrors: Essays on New Zealand Prose. Dunedin: UOP, 1987.
- Williams, Mark. Leaving the Highway.
- Williams, Mark. “Crippled by Geography? New Zealand Nationalisms.” Not On Any Map: Essays on Postcoloniality and Cultural Nationalism. Ed. Stuart Murray. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1997.

Local Historiography
- Ballantyne, Tony and Brian Moloughney, eds. Disputed Histories: Imagining New Zealand’s Pasts. Dunedin: Otago University Press, 2006.

Publishing and reading Contexts
- Lawn, J., & Beatty, B. “Getting to Wellywood: National branding and the globalisation of the New Zealand film industry.” PostScript 24 (2-3) (2005).122-139.
- Skilling, Peter. “Brave New Zealand: The Construction of a New National Identity.” PhD Thesis. The University of Auckland, 2008.
- Wise, J. Macgregor. Cultural Globalization: A User’s Guide. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2008.

Documentary Background
- Hometown, Boomtown. Directed ...
- Auckland: the Unplanned Masterpiece. Dir Gabriel White, 2009.
- Bougainville documentary material

Fiction Anthologies
- McLeod, Marion, & Bill Manhire, ed. Some Other Country: New Zealand’s Best Short Stories. 1984, 1992 & 1997. Fourth Edition. Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2009.

Course Timetable

2009-05-06T08:26:00.018+12:00

[Steve Cambronne Clocks]

2012:

Four Weekends

Session 1 (17-18/3):
1. [Saturday]:
  - Course Introduction [MP & JR]
  - Fiction - Ian Wedde: The Catastrophe [MP]
2. [Sunday]:
  - Poetry - Leggott / Howe [JR]

2 Seminars (10% each):
Times and subjects will be assigned at the first meeting

(6/4-20/4):
[EASTER]

Creative Response (20%):
due in 27th April
Journal:
due in (for comment) 27th April

Session 2 (5-6/5):
1. [Saturday]:
  - Poetry - Lindsay / Reading [JR]
2. [Sunday]:
  - Fiction - Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip [MP]

(25/6-13/7):
[MID-YEAR BREAK]

Session 3 (28-29/7):
1. [Saturday]:
  - Fiction - Carl Shuker: The Lazy Boys [MP]
2. [Sunday]:
  - Poetry - Farrell / Muldoon [JR]

(27/8-7/9):
[MID-SEMESTER BREAK]

Session 4 (15-16/9):
1. [Saturday]:
  - Poetry - Walcott / Wedde [JR]
2. [Sunday]:
  - Fiction - Alice Tawhai: Luminous [MP]
  - Course Conclusion [MP & JR]

Journal (20%):
due in (for grading) 19th October

Final Assignment (40%)
due in 19th October

(19/10):
[LECTURES END]

Course Description

2009-05-05T12:50:00.007+12:00

[Anthony Haden-Guest: The Resistance to Theory]

The purpose of this course is to set some selected contemporary New Zealand fiction and poetry writers in an international context. Too often, “New Zealand” and “World” literature are seen as mutually exclusive categories. Actually, we would argue, it’s difficult to understand the innovations and technical demands of our most challenging local writers without some knowledge of where they’re coming from – who their influences / pet hates are; and also without the added rich theoretical explanations of globalization and the postcolonial.

A course anthology will be provided for the poetry section, and you will be expected to purchase and read three novels and a collection of short stories for the fiction section of the course. Reading lists of other relevant materials will also be provided for you to follow up either for your seminar or research essay.

This blog repeats the information in the hardcopy Administration Guide you were given when you enrolled for the course. Together with its accompanying online Course Anthology site, it's designed to give you a forum to share your discoveries and insights throughout the year.

The principal writers we will be discussing include four pairs of poets (a NZ poet paired with an international one, in each case), and four local fiction writers:

Poets:

Michele Leggott / Susan Howe

Graham Lindsay / Peter Reading

Michael Harlow / Anne Carson

Fiona Farrell / Paul Muldoon

Novelists:

Nigel Cox: Dirty Work (1987)

Lloyd Jones: Mr Pip (2006)

Carl Shuker: Lazy Boys (2006)

Alice Tawhai: Luminous (2007)

Welcome

2009-03-28T09:34:00.005+13:00

[Massey Albany]

Paper Number:

139.750

Paper Coordinators:

Dr Mary Paul
& Dr Jack Ross

Value:

30 credits

Full Title:

Contemporary New Zealand Writers in an International Context

Prescription:

This course sets contemporary New Zealand fiction and poetry in an international context. The innovations and technical demands of our most challenging writers will be studied with reference to selected international examples. Globalisation and the postcolonial will be addressed as key terms in contemporary cultural debate.

Pre-requisite(s):

Graduate status

Co-requisite(s):

None

Restriction(s):

Albany 139.795 Special Topic in English in 2008

Learning Outcomes:

Students who successfully complete this paper should be able to:

Demonstrate an advanced understanding of globalisation and postcoloniality as theories of transnational cultural flows.

Place selected New Zealand literary texts within the context of international creative influences.

Perform a sustained close reading of a literary text with particular focus on technical and stylistic innovation.

Develop written, spoken, and creative responses to course texts and theories at postgraduate level.

Develop their own creative writing as a method of critical inquiry.

Assessment:

100% internal assessment comprising:

20% - Creative response in a genre of the student’s choice (up to 1,000 words)
[learning outcomes 4 and 5]
This assignment is developed in discussion with the paper co-ordinators.

20% - Critical journal (up to 3,000 words)
[learning outcomes 1-4]
A series of critical thoughts and reactions to all of the major authors and ideas studied in the course. The journal receives both formative and summative assessment.

20% - Two oral seminars each worth 10% (equivalent to 1,000 words each)
[learning outcomes 2-4]
To ensure coverage of both segments of the course, students are asked to give one seminar on poetry and one on fiction. The intention is that one of the seminars can be developed more formally in the research essay. Each seminar is regarded as equivalent to 1,000 words of formal written output, but (as a general rule) half of this will qualify as drafting for the research essay.

40% - Research essay (up to 4,000 words)
[learning outcomes 1-4]

Description:

This paper extends, updates, and deepens the introductory approaches to New Zealand literature and postcolonial writing that students receive in their undergraduate papers. Although papers in New Zealand literature are presently listed in the English postgraduate programme, they tend to focus on mid-twentieth century settler writing or ethnic identities rather than contemporary fiction and poetry.

The course invites students to see “New Zealand” and “World” literature as interrelated categories. Students will be challenged to engage with the innovations and technical demands of some of this country’s most demanding local writers in the light of international influences. In addition to this focus on the formal dimensions of texts, the course also draws students into a critical conversation on globalisation and the postcolonial as key terms in cultural theory. This is a timely debate in a period when New Zealand literature has been conceptualised as part of an export culture, in contrast to the predominant mid-century effort to develop an authentic local voice.

The course assessment includes a substantial formative element (the critical journal) as well as a creative component. These assessments are consistent with the principle that informal and creative responses to literature can act as complements to, and preparation for, the more standard academic mode of expository writing.

[New Zealand in the World]