Auckland University Press: 301 books

Based on in-depth research and interviews with 30 tribal elders, this guidebook to whaikorero-or New Zealand’s traditional Maori oratory-is the first introduction to this fundamental art form. Assessing whaikorero’s origin, history, structure, language, and style of delivery, this volume features...

The songs of New Zealand's Maori tradition are a living art form and an abundant source of knowledge about tribal history and culture. An introduction to the classic collection first compiled in the 1920s by politician Sir Apirana Ngata, this volume not only outlines the origins and history of the...

Compiling a rich, accessible introduction to the people and the land of Taikokerau-a northern region of New Zealand-this collection of proverbs offers traditional wisdom from the oral record of an indigenous history and culture. Presenting close to 200 selected sayings that capture key moments in...

From revered, established writers as well as exciting new voices, the poems in Puna Wai Korero offer a broad picture of Maori poetry in English. The voices are many and diverse: confident, angry, traditional, respectful, experimental, despairing, and full of hope, expressing a range of poetic techniques...

This collection of poetry culls Karl Stead’s most lasting and memorable works into a single volume. Drawn from previously published works though his distinguished career, from his debut collection Whether the Will is Free to his recent publication The Black River, this resource also contains 22 previously unpublished poems from his early days.

Making unexpected connections, this book collects poems written from a variety of times, locations, and experiences—from the water frontage of Fiji, Fiordland, and the Mediterranean to the built history of Moscow and Berlin. Filled with a thoughtful musicality, a shambling romance, and a sense of...

Michele Leggott's new book of poetry follows on from her 2009 collection, Mirabile Dictu, in its exploration of light and of gathering dark. Leggott is a poet of the lilting, shining moment, and five of the sections in this collection follow her through her own moments and movements—to Devonport,...

Swimmers, Dancers is a second collection of poems from Michele Leggott and is a tender evocation of family in free open verse that is full of colour, movement and light. The poems remember her parents and childhood, celebrate the birth of Leggott's second son and offer glimpses of art and literature amidst endless inventive games with words, sounds and spaces.

Tales of Gotham City consists of three groups of poems that were written over a period of seven years, from 1977–83. Ian Wedde says of this collection: When I went 'greedily' looking for meaning among the poems I'd written since about 1977, I found the record of a withdrawal of curiosity, its replacement...

Featuring a variety of lyrical poems, this remarkable new collection illustrates the allegorical and philosophical while still gesturing towards the ecstatic. Constantly finding new ways to express wonder, this anthology begins with a springtime “shout of green” and ends with an “invisible reader.”...

Frank Sargeson wrote fiction for over half a century as well as occasional criticism in many forms and on many topics. Writers considered include D. H. Lawrence, Sherwood Anderson, Henry Lawson and Olive Schreiner besides fellow New Zealanders such as Katherine Mansfield, Janet Frame, Dan Davin, James...

This collection of 28 critical essays provides provocative comment on the work of 20 New Zealand writers, including Elizabeth Knox, Katherine Mansfield, Kendrick Smithyman, Allen Curnow, and Janet Frame.

The major New Zealand novelists of the 1980s have begun to receive international acclaim. This first critical study of Janet Frame, Keri Hulme, Witi Ihimaera, Maurice Gee, Ian Wedde, and C.K. Stead concentrates on their important works to explore how deeply-rooted anxieties about New Zealand's cultural situation and national identity are articulated in New Zealand fiction.

The collected critical writings of one of New Zealand’s major poets and critics, covering half a century of his work. Of the thirty-eight items (reviews, essays, lectures, interviews, and letters) included, his controversial introductions to his anthologies of New Zealand verse are the best known....