James Keir Baxter - Biography, Sources

Poet, playwright, and critic, born near Dunedin, New Zealand. He worked as a labourer, journalist, and teacher and led a bohemian life until he was converted to Roman Catholicism. He later founded a religious community on the Wanganui R. He published more than 30 books of poetry, notably In Fires of No Return (1958), Howrah Bridge (1961), and Autumn Testament (1972).

James Keir Baxter

James K. Baxter
Born:	June 29, 1926 Dunedin, New Zealand
Died:	October 22, 1972 Auckland, New Zealand
Occupation(s):	Poet
Nationality:	New Zealand
Writing period:	1944-1972
Literary movement:	Wellington Group
Debut work(s):	Beyond the Palisade, 1944
Influences:	Dylan Thomas

James Keir Baxter (June 29, 1926—October 22, 1972) was a New Zealand poet, and a controversial figure in New Zealand society.

Biography

Baxter was born in Dunedin to Archibald Baxter and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton.

Baxter began writing poetry at the age of seven.

In 1944, at age seventeen he joined the University of Otago and that year he published his first collection of poetry Beyond the Palisade which was well received critically and established him as a poet.

While at Otago university he began drinking heavily but in 1954 he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. However it was at this time that the collection of poems Pig Island Letters was published in which his writing found a new level of clarity.

He was buried at Jerusalem on Māori land in front of "the Top House" where he had lived, in a ceremony combining Māori and Catholic traditions. a poem, 1948 Recent Trends in New Zealand Poetry, 1951 Poems Unpleasant, 1952 (with Louis Johnson and Anton Vogt) Rapunzel: a Fantasia for Six Voices, 1953 The Fallen House, 1953 The Fire and the Anvil, 1955 Traveller’s Litany, 1955 The Iron Breadboard: Studies in New Zealand Writing, 1957 The Night Shift: Poems on Aspects of Love, 1957 (with Charles Doyle, Louis Johnson and Kendrick Smithyman) In Fires of No Return, 1958 Chosen Poems, 1958 Two Plays: The Wide Open Cage and Jack Winter's Dream, 1959 Howrah Bridge and Other Poems, 1961 Three Women and the Sea, 1961 The Spots of the Leopard, 1962 The Ballad of the Soap Powder Lock-Out, 1963 A Selection of Poetry, 1964 Pig Island Letters, 1966 Aspects of Poetry in New Zealand, 1967 The Lion Skin, 1967. The Man on the Horse, 1967 The Bureaucrat, 1968 (prod.) The Rock Woman: Selected Poems, 1969 Jerusalem Sonnets: Poems for Colin Durning, 1970 The Flowering Cross, 1970 The Devil and Mr Mulcahy, and The Band Rotunda, 1971 (plays) Jerusalem Daybook, 1971 The Sore-Footed Man, and The Temptations of Oedipus, 1971 (plays) Ode to Auckland and Other Poems, 1972 Autumn Testament, 1972 (edited by Paul Millar) Four God Songs, 1972 Letter to Peter Olds, 1972

Posthumously published

Runes, 1973. Baxter, 1973 (record) The Labyrinth: Some Uncollected Poems 1944-72, 1974. The Tree House and Other Poems for Children, 1974. Weir) The Holy Life and Death of Concrete Grady, 1976 (ed. The Essential Baxter / selected and introduced by John Weir, 1993 Cold Spring: Baxter's Unpublished Early Collection, 1996 (edited by Paul Millar)

Sources

http://www.vuw.ac.nz/modernletters/bnzp/2001/baxternote.html http://oldpoetry.com/authors/James%20Keir%20Baxter http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/baxt.htm

Persondata
NAME	Baxter, James Keir
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Baxter, James K.
SHORT DESCRIPTION	New Zealand poet
DATE OF BIRTH	June 29, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH	Dunedin, New Zealand
DATE OF DEATH	October 22, 1972
PLACE OF DEATH	Auckland, New Zealand