Something about Charles Brasch

  

(No.1 image: M T Woollaston, Charles Brasch from memory 1938, charcoal. Auckland Art Gallery, gift of Mr Colin McCahon, 1961) (No.2 image: Graphic by Hayden Smith)

Brasch, Charles (1909–73),

was a gifted poet, the distinguished founding editor of Landfall, and a generous and far-sighted patron of the arts. (from NZ Book Council)

He was born in Dunedin, and studied in St John’s College, Oxford. Some of his works had been published in university magazines. Then he traveled lots of countries, such as Egypt, Russia, America, etc.

Because of the War, Brasch began writing mature poems which looked back to his country of origin:

‘It was New Zealand I discovered, not England, because New Zealand lived in me as no other country could live, part of myself as I was part of it, the world I breathed and wore from birth, my seeing and my language’

He returned to New Zealand in late 1945, permanently. Then he devoted himself to editing Landfall virtually full-time. He supported many New Zealand artists, such as Sargeson, Colin McCahon and James K. Baxter. He followed Burns Fellowship, he bequeathed his collection of New Zealand books and paintings to the Hocken Library, and he also contributed substantially to the first residencies for writers, composers and painters, at the University of Otago.

  

We can find his words on the plaque at the Octagon, Dunedin. The Indirections can be found in several libraries in Dunedin, it is a memoir from 1909 to 1947, and Dunedin is the first part in this book. From the chapter, we can discover a different Dunedin city in old days and writer’s life there.

(more information about Charles Brasch)

Something about Hone Tuwhare

(Wayne Wilson/Getty Images)

Hone, Tuwhare (1922–2008), is New Zealand’s most distinguished Maori poet writing in English, and also a playwright and author of short fiction. He was born in Kaikohe.
When he was awarded the Burns Fellowship in 1969, he began a long association with the Otago region. And as showed on the plaque, he spent his rest of life in Dunedin. In this city he met the Maori painter, Ralph Hotere, who provided illustrations for his next four volumes—Come Rain Hail (1970), Sap-Wood & Milk (1972), Something Nothing (1974) and Making a Fist of It: Poems and Short Stories (1978).
Snowfall should be first collected in Year of the Dog: Poems New and Selected (1982), but I didn’t find the book in library. The collection of poems I have found is Mihi: Collected Poems (1987). And I took the picture of the Snowfall showed bellow.

 

(more information about Hone Tuwhare)

Something about Dennis McEldowney

image from NZ Book Council

Dennis McEldowney (1926-2003), writer and publisher, he was born in Wanganui and grew up in Christchurch. He spent 4 years working at the School of Physical Education in Dunedin (1963-1966). Full of the Warm South, the one mentioned in the plaque at Octagon, is the dairy he wrote during that period of time. This dairy was published as a book, which I can still find in Dunedin Central Library.

 

From the book, we can get lots of information of his life in that period of time, such as he lived in Maori Hill, he paid lots attention on observing the city (or he called town in his dairy). More than that, this book can be a very good material for people who study the Dunedin history, life style and culture during that time.

Something we don’t have today:

And then I missed the elephants-five of them racing along George Street for charity and Bullen’s circus.

(more information about Dennis McEldowney)