Book description
James K. Baxter (1926-1972) is one of the twentieth-century's most
remarkable poets, yet he has been too little regarded of outside his
native New Zealand. In this innovative selection, Paul Millar, the
expert on Baxter, gathers his most powerful and celebrated poems -
political, lyrical and spiritual - with some of his more unexpected
writings, including previously unpublished work. The book is in four
sections, representing the stages from Baxter's early published work
to his last vivid, inspiring and notorious years as a guru of the
counter-culture. Each section has a biographical introduction. Notes,
a glossary covering words and references unique to New Zealand, and a
full bibliography, complete this essential celebration of Baxter's poetry.
James K. Baxter was born in Dunedin, New Zealand, in 1926. He
attended Quaker schools in New Zealand and England, and in 1944
enrolled at the University of Otago. He published his first collection
of poetry, Beyond the Palisades, in the same year. He abandoned his
course a year later, struggling with alcoholism, and from 1945 to 1947
took a series of manual jobs. He was baptised as an Anglican and, in
1953 he published his third major collection and began to study at
Victoria University in Wellington. He joined Alcoholics Anonymous in
1954, and was greatly influenced by its principles; he was also
increasingly drawn to Roman Catholicism, and in 1958 was received into
the Church. His collection In Fires of No Return (1958), brought him
international recognition. A UNESCO Fellowship enabled him to travel
to Japan and India, and led to an increasingly critical attitude to
New Zealand society, responses he explored in the poetry and plays of
the 1960s. In 1966 Baxter was awarded a Robert Burns Fellowship at the
University of Otago. He wrote poetry, plays and works of criticism
prolifically, but in 1968 he left his university post, and his family,
to establish a drop-in centre for drug addicts in Auckland. A year
later, he began to create a commune at Jerusalem, a former mission
station. Baxter died in Auckland in 1972 and was buried at Jerusalem
in a funeral incorporating Catholic and M ori rites.
Paul Millar is a lecturer in English at the University of
Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand), with research interests in New
Zealand and Pacific literature. He holds a BA (Hons) from Auckland
University and a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington. He was a
lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington from 1997, before moving
to the University of Canterbury in 2009. In 2001 he taught and
conducted research at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa as an
exchange professor and Fulbright scholar. He is a founding board
member of the New Zealand Electronic Text Centre (
www. nzetc. org), and was for
some years a member of the board of the New Zealand Book Council. In
2003 he was awarded the prestigious Copyright Licensing Limited
Writer's Award. He has twice judged the Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
