(image from list. co.uk)
(from the back cover of her book The Goose Bath)
Nene Janet Paterson Clutha (28 August 1924 – 29 January 2004). Janet Frame is her Pen name, she is New Zealand’s most distinguished writer.
Among her numerous honours, Frame is a Member of the Order of New Zealand, a Nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature and an Honorary Foreign Member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She was among ten of New Zealand’s greatest living artists named as Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Artists in 2003. (from NZ book council)
She was born in Dunedin. Early in 1931, her family settled in Ōamaru, Janet’s father’s home town, which Janet later called her ‘kingdom by the sea’. In March 1943 Frame studied English and French at the University of Otago in Dunedin, and attended Dunedin Teachers’ Training College.
As shown in the second picture, this is a book of her poems was collected and edited by Pamela Gordon, Denis Harold and Bill Manhire. They thought these poems can illustrate shape of Janet Frame’s life. She kept writing until very end. I post the part of the last poem in this book below.
The end
At the end
I have to move my sight up or down.
The path stops here.
Up is heaven, down is ocean
or, more simply, sky and sea rivalling
in welcome, crying Fly (or Drown) in me.
I have always found it hard to resist an invitation
especially when I have come to a dead end
a
dead
end.
The poem mentioned on the Octagon plaque was not collected in this book, but it can be found elsewhere.
Sunday afternoon at two o’clock
Downstairs a sweeping broom goes knock-knock-knock
in the corners getting rid of last week’s dust.
The weather hasn’t decided to rain or shine.
Downstairs the washing is hung out, brought in, hung out
again on the clothesline.Having been to church the people are good, quiet,
with sober stops a the end of their cold Dunedin noses,
with polite old-fashioned sentences like Pass the Cruet,
and, later, attentive glorying in each other’s roses.The wind combs the sea gulls, like dandruff, out of the sky.
They settle, flaked small, on stone shoulder and steeple,
a city coastal infection without remedy.
Their scattered sea-hungry flocks disturb the good people.Long past is Sunday dinner and its begpardons.
Cars start in the street. The ice-cream shop is open.
The brass band gets ready to play in the Botanical Gardens.
The beach, the pictures, the stock-car racing tracks beckon.Seizing time from the University clock, the wind
suddenly cannot carry its burden of chiming sound.
The waves ride in, tumultuous, breaking gustily out of tune,
burying
two o’clock on Sunday afternoon.
Janet Frame has lots of works, according to the information on wikipedia, she wrote eleven novels, four collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography during her lifetime. Since her death, a twelfth novel, a second volume of poetry, and a handful of short stories have been released.
(more information about Janet Frame)
(a short video of Janet Frame)
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