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What they wrote A taste of contributor comments over our first 20 years On New Zealand Books My hope is that New Zealand Books will provide a forum for frank discussion that dares to rise above the suffocating confines…
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Alan Duff,
Alan Knowles,
Barbara Else,
Bernard Carpinter,
Bill Manhire,
Bill Sewell,
Bruce Stewart,
Charles Ferrall,
Chris Else,
Chris Knox,
Christopher Tremewan,
Colin James,
Dale Williams,
David Hill,
Diane Hebley,
Guy Somerset,
Hamish Keith,
Harry Ricketts,
Heather Murray,
Hilary Stace,
Iain Sharp,
Issue 96,
Jane Bowron,
Jane Stafford,
Jane Westaway,
John Campbell,
Linda Burgess,
Linley Boniface,
Mark Williams,
Murray Edmond,
Nelson Wattie,
Peter Wells,
Roger Robinson,
Sue McCauley,
Summer 2011,
Tom Beard,
William Brandt
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Comment
The late Bill Sewell is the first recipient of the Lauris Edmond Memorial Award for Poetry in recognition of his achievements. Speaking on behalf of the Canterbury Poets Collective and the New Zealand Poetry Society, which set up the award,…
The Ballad of Fifty-one Bill Sewell HeadworX, $19.95, ISBN 0473092540 A couple of years ago I wrote a favourable review of Bill Sewell’s long poem Erebus (1999). He rang and thanked me after he read it; part of what he…
Bill Sewell (1951-2003) Bill Sewell achieved excellence in an unusually wide variety of areas. While versatility is sometimes the province of the amateur, this was not so with Bill, whose manifold fruiting branches sprang from a single and solid…
Fair-minded people like to see others given their due. That has been my experience, although I’ve often wondered about just what percentage of such fair-mindeds there are, especially in literary circles. Most writers I know have a list of other…
All in the same nest The Germans have a word for it: Nestbeschmutzung. It literally means “fouling the nest”, but it has a more general meaning of “putting down your own kind”. This is in effect what Rosemary McLeod did…
Foul winds and fair play. The rugby season is over at last – for all of a couple of
months. But the challenger series for the America’s Cup is already beating to windward. And our professional cricketers, in whatever light…
Lucky Table Vincent O’Sullivan Victoria University Press, $24.95, ISBN 0864734069 Vincent O’Sullivan is not – and has never been – one of our noisier poets. He’s not known, like Denis Glover or James K Baxter, for extravagant behaviour; or, like…
Essential New Zealand Poems ed Lauris Edmond and Bill Sewell Godwit, $29.95, ISBN 1869620879 Why is it that fictional teachers are always teachers of English? How many times do you see on television or at the movies teachers attempting to…
No, not sour grapes People will always bitch about literary awards, and literary awards will always seem inherently unfair. This year’s Montana New Zealand Book Awards will have thrown up their share of sniping, backbiting and dis-appointed egos. Some…
Bovver boys
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