The Auckland University Press Anthology of New Zealand Literature Read online

  The Auckland University Press

  Anthology of New Zealand Literature

  Edited by

  Jane Stafford and Mark Williams

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  CONTACT

  THE UNCULTURED SHORE

  Te Horeta [‘Taniwha of Coromandel’], ‘Cook’s Visit’ (1852; 1862)

  James Cook, from The Voyage of the ‘Endeavour’ (1769)

  John Savage, from Some Account of New Zealand (1807)

  POETIC PROJECTIONS

  Anna Seward, from ‘Elegy on Captain Cook’ (1780)

  Henry Headley, from ‘An Invocation to Melancholy: a Fragment’ (1786)

  MISSIONARIES, WHALERS AND PAKEHA MAORI

  Thomas Kendall, Letter to Josiah Pratt (1818; 1820)

  Winthrop Mackworth Praed, from Australasia (1823)

  Anonymous, ‘Come All You Tonguers’ (c. 1830)

  James ‘Worser’ Heberley, from ‘Reminiscences’ (1837–40)

  F.E. Maning, from Old New Zealand (1863)

  COLONIAL

  TREATIES AND DECLARATIONS

  Declaration of Independence of New Zealand (1835)

  The Treaty of Waitangi (1840)

  William Colenso, ‘The Authentic and Genuine History of the Signing of the Treaty of Waitangi’ (1890)

  From The Journal of Ensign Best (1837–41)

  IMAGINED WORLDS

  Edward Gibbon Wakefield, from A Letter from Sydney (1829)

  Isabella E. Aylmer, from Distant Homes (1862)

  Thomas Campbell, ‘Song of the Emigrants to New Zealand’ (1839)

  Thomas Bracken, ‘New Zealand Hymn’ (1876)

  Robert Browning, from ‘Waring’ (1842)

  Anne Brontë, from Agnes Grey (1847)

  THE WORLD TO HAND

  Mary Taylor, Letter to Charlotte Brontë (1848)

  John Barr of Craigilee, ‘New Zealand Comforts’ (1861)

  William Golder, from ‘Thoughts on the Wairarapa’ (1854)

  Anonymous, ‘Original Lines’, from the Daily Southern Cross (1848)

  Samuel Butler, from Erewhon, or, Over the Range (1872)

  Anonymous, ‘Original Poetry’, from the Daily Southern Cross (1843)

  COLONIAL ROMANCE

  Alfred Domett, from Ranolf and Amohia (1872)

  Joshua Henry Kirby, from Henry Ancrum: A Tale of the Last War in New Zealand (1872)

  WAR

  H. Butler Stoney, from Taranaki: A Tale of the War (1861)

  Wiremu Tamihana Tarapipipi Te Waharoa, Letter to His Excellency the Governor from the Runanga assembled at Ngaruawahia, from the Taranaki Herald (1861)

  PRESERVATIONISM

  George Grey, Preface to Polynesian Mythology, and Ancient Traditional History of the New Zealand Race, as Furnished by their Priests and Chiefs (1855)

  George Grey, ‘The Children of Heaven and Earth: Ko Nga Tama a Rangi’, from Polynesian Mythology (1855)

  Wiremu Te Rangikaheke, Letter to Prince Alfred, from the Daily Southern Cross (1867)

  MAORILAND

  SETTLER ECOLOGIES

  William Pember Reeves, ‘The Passing of the Forest’ (1898)

  Blanche Baughan, ‘A Bush Section’ (1908)

  ‘General Hints on Gardening’, from Yates’ Gardening Guide for Australia and New Zealand (1897)

  Katherine Mansfield, ‘The Woman at the Store’ (1912)

  Katherine Mansfield, from The Notebooks (1907)

  George Phipps Williams and W.P. [William Pember] Reeves, ‘An Old Chum on New Zealand Scenery’ (1889)

  Jessie Mackay, ‘Poet and Farmer’ (1891)

  POLITICS

  Kate Sheppard, ‘Ten Reasons Why the Women of New Zealand Should Vote’ (1888)

  Arthur H. Adams, ‘The New Woman’ (1899)

  Julius Vogel, from Anno Domini 2000; or, Woman’s Destiny (1889)

  Jessie Mackay, ‘The Charge at Parihaka’ (1881)

  WORK

  Katherine Mansfield, ‘The Tiredness of Rosabel’ (1908)

  David McKee Wright, ‘Shearing’ (1897)

  Edith Searle Grossmann, from The Heart of the Bush (1910)

  From The ‘Sure to Rise’ Cookery Book (1914)

  William Satchell, ‘Song of the Gumfield’ (1900)

  Blanche Baughan, ‘The Old Place’ (1903)

  Anonymous, ‘Digger’s Farewell’ (c. 1890s; 1928)

  COLONIAL GOTHIC

  Edward Tregear, ‘Te Whetu Plains’ (1919)

  William Satchell, from The Toll of the Bush (1905)

  Katherine Mansfield, ‘Millie’ (1913)

  A DYING RACE?

  Apirana Ngata, ‘A Scene from the Past’ (1892; 1908)

  Dora Wilcox, ‘Onawe’ (1905)

  Blanche Baughan, ‘Pipi on the Prowl’ (1912)

  THE KAINGA AND THE MODERN WORLD

  A.A. Grace, ‘Hira’ (1895)

  Henry Lawson, ‘A Daughter of Maoriland’ (1897)

  John P. Ward, from Wanderings with the Maori Prophets, Te Whiti and Tohu (1883)

  THE HISTORICAL IMAGINARY

  Jessie Mackay, ‘The Noosing of the Sun God’ (1909)

  William Satchell, from The Greenstone Door (1914)

  Thomas Bracken, from ‘The March of Te Rauparaha’ (1890)

  A NEW ZEALAND LITERATURE?

  Alexander Bathgate, ‘Faerie’ (1890)

  Jessie Mackay, Introduction to New Zealand Rhymes Old and New (1907)

  A.G. Stephens, ‘The Maidens of Maoriland’ (1903)

  Katherine Mansfield, ‘Out here it is the Summer time’ (1907)

  Rudyard Kipling, ‘One Lady at Wairakei’ (1892)

  BETWEEN THE WARS

  BEAUTIFUL CEMETERIES

  Katherine Mansfield, ‘An Indiscreet Journey’ (1915)

  Robin Hyde, from Passport to Hell (1936)

  Archibald Baxter, from We Will Not Cease (1939)

  Robin Hyde, ‘East Side’ (1938–39; 2003)

  Douglas Stewart, ‘Green Lions’ (1936)

  WHAT IS IT MAKES THE STRANGER?

  Robin Hyde, ‘What is it makes the stranger?’ (1938–39; 2003)

  Robin Hyde, Author’s Foreword to The Godwits Fly (1938)

  R.A.K. Mason, ‘Latter-Day Geography Lesson’ (1924)

  R.A.K. Mason, ‘Old Memories of Earth’ (1924)

  R.A.K. Mason, ‘Sonnet of Brotherhood’ (1924)

  AT THE BEACH

  Katherine Mansfield, ‘At the Bay’ (1921)

  Robin Hyde, ‘The Beaches’ (1937–38; 2003)

  Eileen Duggan, ‘The Tides Run Up the Wairau’ (1937)

  Len Lye, ‘Dazing Daylight’, from the sequence ‘Song Time Stuff’ (1938)

  IN THE GARDEN

  H. Guthrie-Smith, from Tutira: The Story of a New Zealand Sheep Station (1921)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Time’ (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Pause’ (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Erica’ (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Detail’ (1929)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Response’ (1929)

  RETROSPECTION

  7Robin Hyde, from ‘Arangi-Ma’ (1935–36; 2003)

  Pat Lawlor, from Maori Tales (1926)

  Eileen Duggan, ‘The Bushfeller’ (1937)

  Frank S. Anthony, ‘Some Pioneering’ (1923–24; 1938)

  William Pember Reeves, ‘A Colonist in his Garden’ (1925)

  IN ANGER

  John A. Lee, from Children of the Poor (1934)

  John Mulgan, from Man Alone (1939)

  THE ANTI-PURITANS

  Jane Mander, from ‘New Zealand Novels: The St
ruggle Against Environment’ (1934)

  Douglas Stewart, ‘The Girl in the Bus’ (1936)

  Jean Devanny, from Point of Departure (n.d.; 1986)

  Jean Devanny, from The Butcher Shop (1926)

  Frank Sargeson, ‘Conversation with My Uncle’ (1936)

  A.R.D. Fairburn, ‘Rhyme of the Dead Self’ (1930)

  H.W. Gretton, ‘Double-Bunking’ (c. 1936)

  CULTURAL NATIONALISM

  DISTANCE LOOKS OUR WAY

  Allen Curnow, ‘Landfall in Unknown Seas’ (1943)

  Charles Brasch, ‘The Silent Land’ (1945)

  Charles Brasch, ‘The Islands (2)’ (1948)

  Anna Kavan, from ‘New Zealand: Answer to an Inquiry’ (1943)

  Allen Curnow, ‘At Joachim Kahn’s’ (1943)

  A HOME IN THOUGHT

  R.A.K. Mason, ‘Song of Allegiance’ (1925)

  Ursula Bethell, ‘Primavera’ (1929)

  Frank Sargeson, ‘Chaucerian’ (1935)

  M.H. Holcroft, from The Deepening Stream (1940)

  Denis Glover, ‘Home Thoughts’ (1936)

  Allen Curnow, ‘House and Land’ (1941)

  THROUGH PAKEHA EYES

  Robin Hyde, ‘The Last Ones’ (1937; 2003)

  John Mulgan, from Man Alone (1939)

  Charles Brasch, ‘Forerunners’ (1948)

  THE ANTI-MYTH

  John Mulgan, from Man Alone (1939)

  Allen Curnow, ‘The Unhistoric Story’ (1941)

  Allen Curnow, ‘The Skeleton of the Great Moa in the Canterbury Museum, Christchurch’ (1943)

  Denis Glover, ‘Centennial’ (1945)

  DEPRESSION

  F.S. [Frederick Sinclaire], from ‘Notes by the Way’, Tomorrow (1934)

  A.R.D. Fairburn, from ‘Dominion’ (1938)

  Douglas Stewart, ‘Mending the Bridge’ (1936)

  Denis Glover, ‘The Road Builders’ (1939)

  Denis Glover, ‘The Magpies’ (1941)

  MASCULINITIES

  Denis Glover, ‘The Arraignment of Paris’ (1937)

  Denis Glover, ‘Sings Harry’ (1941)

  Frank Sargeson, ‘A Great Day’ (1940)

  Frank Sargeson, ‘Sale Day’ (1940)

  Frank Sargeson, ‘The Making of a New Zealander’ (1940)

  FRETFUL SLEEPERS: AFTER THE WAR

  SUBURBIA

  James K. Baxter, ‘Ballad of Calvary Street’ (1960)

  Mary Stanley, ‘The Wife Speaks’ (1953)

  Louis Johnson, ‘Song in the Hutt Valley’ (1954)

  UNHOMELY

  Louis Johnson, ‘Magpie and Pines’ (1952)

  Mary Stanley, ‘Morepork’ (1958)

  Mary Stanley, ‘Sestina’ (1953)

  J.C. Sturm, ‘The Old Coat’ (1954)

  NEW ZEALAND AND ITS DISCONTENTS

  M.K. Joseph, ‘Secular Litany’ (1950)

  Bill Pearson, from ‘Fretful Sleepers: A Sketch of New Zealand Behaviour and Its Implications for the Artist’ (1952)

  Greville Texidor, from Goodbye Forever (1947)

  James K. Baxter, from ‘Recent Trends in New Zealand Poetry’ (1951)

  LATE ROMANTICS

  Bruce Mason, from The End of the Golden Weather (1959; 1962)

  Ruth Dallas, ‘Deep in the Hills’ (1953)

  Ruth Dallas, ‘Milking Before Dawn’ (1953)

  Denis Glover, ‘Arawata Bill’ (1953)

  James K. Baxter, ‘Poem in the Matukituki Valley’ (1949; 1953)

  Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, ‘The Return’ (1950)

  Mary Stanley, ‘Per Diem et per Noctem’ (1953)

  Mary Stanley, ‘Night Piece’ (1953)

  Eileen Duggan, ‘Night’ (1951)

  THE MORAL PLANE OF WAR

  John Mulgan, from Report on Experience (1947)

  John Male, ‘Girl with Her Hair Cut Short’ (1944; 1989)

  John Male, ‘Three poems—Tunisia, April 1943’ (1944; 1989)

  John Male, ‘Sangro in Flood’ (1944; 1989)

  M.K. Joseph, ‘Drunken Gunners’ (1950)

  R.A.K. Mason, ‘Sonnet to MacArthur’s Eyes’ (1950; 1962)

  Frank Sargeson, ‘The Hole That Jack Dug’ (1945)

  TEACHERS

  Sylvia Ashton-Warner, from Spinster (1958)

  A.P. Gaskell, ‘School Picnic’ (1947)

  Reweti T. Kohere, from The Autobiography of a Maori (1951)

  Ian Cross, from The God Boy (1957)

  From the Mazengarb Report (1954)

  THE SOCIAL PATTERN

  Dan Davin, ‘The Quiet One’ (1949)

  J.C. Sturm, ‘For All the Saints’ (1955)

  Apirana Ngata, ‘Maori Songs’ (1949; 1972)

  FROM KIWI CULTURE TO COUNTER-CULTURE

  VERNACULARS

  Peter Cape, ‘Down the Hall on a Saturday Night’ (1958)

  Maurice Gee, from The Big Season (1962)

  Barry Crump, from Hang On a Minute Mate (1961)

  Jean Watson, from Stand in the Rain (1965)

  ‘Hori’ [pseud. W. Norman McCallum], ‘Statistics Are Important … Or Are They?’, from Flagon Fun (c. 1966)

  THE NEW ZEALANDERS

  Amelia Batistich, ‘An Olive Tree in Dalmatia’ (1963)

  Renato Amato, ‘One of the Titans’ (1967)

  James K. Baxter, from ‘Pig Island Letters’ (1966)

  Marilyn Duckworth, ‘Among Strangers’ (1968)

  PROVINCIAL GOTHIC

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘The Old Place’ (1964)

  Ronald Hugh Morrieson, from The Scarecrow (1963)

  O.E. Middleton, ‘Killers’ (1972)

  THE PROBLEM OF ENGINELESS FLIGHT

  David Ballantyne, from Sydney Bridge Upside Down (1968)

  C.K. Stead, ‘A Fitting Tribute’ (1965)

  Alan Brunton, ‘Note d’un Poète’ (1968)

  THE BOMB IS MADE

  Keith Sinclair, ‘The Bomb Is Made’ (1963)

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘No Ordinary Sun’ (1964)

  TE AO HOU

  Rowley Habib, ‘The Raw Men: For the Maori Battalion’ (1964)

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘Time and the Child’ (1959)

  Erik Schwimmer, from Judges’ Report, Te Ao Hou Literary and Art Competitions (1961)

  Peter Sharples, ‘The Fledgling’ (1961)

  IMAGINING THE OTHER

  Noel Hilliard, from Maori Girl (1960)

  James K. Baxter, ‘The Maori Jesus’ (1966; 1979)

  Bill Pearson, from Coal Flat (1963)

  Rod Derrett, ‘Puha and Pakeha’ (c. 1965)

  THE JOY OF SEX

  Frank Sargeson, ‘City and Suburban’ (1965)

  Fleur Adcock, ‘Wife to Husband’ (1964)

  James K. Baxter, ‘On the Death of Her Body’ (1961)

  Maurice Duggan, ‘Along Rideout Road That Summer’ (1965)

  Phillip Wilson, ‘End of the River’ (1960)

  BLAST

  James K. Baxter, ‘A Small Ode on Mixed Flatting’ (1967)

  Alan Brunton, Manifesto to The Word Is Freed, 1 (1969)

  EARTHLY: THE SEVENTIES

  PIPE DREAMS

  David Mitchell, ‘th oldest game’ (1972)

  James K. Baxter, from Jerusalem Sonnets (1970)

  Sam Hunt, ‘Porirua Friday Night’ (1972)

  EARTHLY

  Ian Wedde, from Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos (1975)

  Murray Edmond, ‘Psyche at the Beginning of Spring’ (1975)

  Jan Kemp, ‘Quiet in the Eye, New Hebrides to Fiji 1974’ (1979)

  Kendrick Smithyman, ‘An Ordinary Day Beyond Kaitaia’ (1972)

  Allen Curnow, from ‘Trees, Effigies, Moving Objects’ (1972)

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘Rain’ (1970)

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘A Fall of Rain at Mitimiti: Hokianga’ (1974)

  Sam Hunt, ‘A Valley Called Moonshine’ (1970)

  James K. Baxter, ‘The Ikons’ (1971)

  Elizabeth Smither, ‘The Legend of Marcello Mastroianni’s Wife’ (1981)

  Ruth Dallas, ‘Living with a Cabbage-tree’ (197
6)

  DOMESTICS

  Maurice Gee, ‘A Glorious Morning, Comrade’ (1975)

  Albert Wendt, from Sons for the Return Home (1973)

  C.K. Stead, from ‘Quesada’ (1975)

  TRANSGRESSION

  Maurice Gee, from Plumb (1978)

  Ronald Hugh Morrieson, ‘Cross My Heart and Cut My Throat’ (1974)

  Bill Manhire, ‘How to Take Off Your Clothes at the Picnic’ (1977)

  AGAINST THE SOFTNESS OF WOMAN

  Rachel McAlpine, ‘Burning the Liberty Bodice’ (1979)

  Lauris Edmond, ‘Latter Day Lysistrata’ (1980)

  Hilaire Kirkland, ‘Aubade’ (1981)

  Jan Kemp, ‘Against the Softness of Woman’ (1976)

  Fleur Adcock, ‘Against Coupling’ (1971)

  FEARFUL ECOLOGIES

  Ian Wedde, ‘Pathway to the Sea’ (1975)

  Apirana Taylor, ‘The Womb’ (1979)

  Brian Turner, ‘The Initiation’ (1978)

  Kevin Ireland, ‘Animals and Engines’ (1974)

  Ruth Dallas, ‘Pioneer Woman with Ferrets’ (1976)

  Allen Curnow, ‘A Balanced Bait in Handy Pellet Form’ (1979)

  John Clarke (as Fred Dagg), ‘The Gumboot Song’ (1976)

  THE MAORI RENAISSANCE, I

  Witi Ihimaera, ‘A Game of Cards’ (1972)

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘To a Maori Figure Cast in Bronze Outside the Chief Post Office, Auckland’ (1972)

  Hone Tuwhare, ‘The New Zealand Land March on Wellington, Hepetema 14–Oketopa 17, 1975’ (1975)

  Patricia Grace, ‘Parade’ (1975)

  Apirana Taylor, ‘Sad Joke on a Marae’ (1979)

  BECAUSE HE WAS A MAN: SPEAKING OF WAR

  Ian Wedde, ‘37 land-mine casualty Amman 1970’, from Earthly: Sonnets for Carlos (1975)

  David Mitchell, ‘my lai / remuera / ponsonby’ (1972)

  David Mitchell, ‘ponsonby / remuera / my lai’ (1972)

  Michael Harlow, ‘The Nannies Are Coming!’ (1975)

  WHADDARYA? THE EIGHTIES

  NATIONAL ANTHEMS

  David Eggleton, ‘God Defend New Zealand’ (1988)

  Maurice Shadbolt, from Once On Chunuk Bair (1982)

  Greg McGee, from Foreskin’s Lament (1980; 1981)