Anthology

An activity which has given both pleasure and satisfaction has been poetry anthologising. I got into it by chance. When I was teaching I gave a talk at an in-service course advocating more New Zealand literature in the curriculum. Phoebe Meikle, Longman Paul editor, heard me and approached me about compiling a poetry anthology to remedy the deficiency. I was half way through my selection when I was appointed to the secondary inspectorate. As I was trying out the poems with my students, I wrote to the Director of Secondary Education asking about completing the task. His reply was that I could not as a departmental officer finalise it, but I could find a co-editor to finish it and have my name associated with it. I asked Lois Cox, an honours graduate from Otago and a fellow teacher at Melville High School to complete the project. Ten Modern Poets appeared in 1974

It proved one of Longmans’ successes. Years later attending a meeting of the Wellington Poetry Society, I met two young men from two separate parts of New Zealand. Both gained their first interest in poetry from this anthology. One of the best ways to influence the curriculum is to write a textbook. My school poetry collections were compiled with this thought in mind and later when I moved into adult anthologies I remained very conscious of the agenda-setting nature of the activity.

The contract to work with Ian Wedde on the Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1984) arose from that first anthology. Of all the things I have done, the Penguin is one of which I am most proud. It was a best seller with over 16,000 copies sold. Disappointingly, subsequent anthologists have not followed our lead in seeing Maori poetry as an integral part of New Zealand’s language heritage.

Ian and I worked well together. We chewed the fat for hours over the nature of the task and our expectations. We each individually made our selections and then negotiated. There was some hard bargaining but I was surprised how often our opinions coincided. For example, we were both mutually delighted to find ourselves agreeing that Charles Spear was under-rated. We got the assistance of the late Margaret Orbell for the Maori poems.

I did two more school anthologies:
A Cage of Words, (1980), through which I met Anne who was editor.
Gifts (2000) which included Australian and American poets as well two Pacific Island poets, Konai Thaman and Albert Wendt as well as Canadian Margaret Atwood.

Ian and I did another Penguin anthology, Contemporary New Zealand Poetry, (1989). One of my disappointments is that while it was my turn to write the introduction I did not have the time (I was in David Lange’s office at this stage) nor the energy to devote to that task. Pride prevented me from not admitting I couldn’t do it properly. I believe I sold myself short as a result. That is a regret.

Not so with The New Place: The Poetry of Settlement in New Zealand 1852-1914, (1993) my selection of our 19th century verse. I’ll write about this in a later blog. And I’m particularly pleased with The Earth’s Deep Breathing, (2007) a selection of New Zealand garden poems. Random House’s brilliant production made it an ideal coffee table book. I enjoyed selecting the poems for this collection. My only guide was my own taste and pleasure within the general aim of as catholic a choice as possible.