James K. Baxter

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**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.

1 Biography
2 Selected works
- 2.1 Posthumously published
3 See also
4 Sources

[edit] Biography

Baxter was born in Dunedin to Archibald Baxter and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton. He was named after James Keir Hardie, a founder of the British Labour Party. His father was a farmer and had been a conscientious objector during the First World War. His mother was an intellectual who had studied at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney, the University of Sydney and Newnham College.

He burned his hand on a stove on his first day at school, and later used this incident to represent the failure of institutional education. As a child he contrasted the social order represented by his maternal grandfather with the clan mentality of his Scottish father. He drew analogies between the Highland clan and the Māori Tribes.

Baxter began writing poetry at the age of seven. He continued to write throughout his life; however he became increasingly involved in New Zealand politics. His early works show a sensitive and melancholy child, and described his adolescence as a "testing time".

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. His work at this time was influenced by his interest in Jungian psychology and by the works of Dylan Thomas. He was a member of the Wellington Group of writers with Louis Johnson, W.H. Oliver and Alistair Campbell.

He failed to complete his course at Otago, and did various odd jobs including working as a postman and at an abattoir. In 1948 he married Jacqueline Sturm, and at about the same time his interest in religion culminated in his joining the Anglican church. He later enrolled at teachers' college and received a BA in 1956.

While at Otago university he began drinking heavily but in 1954 he joined Alcoholics Anonymous. By 1955 he had received a substantial legacy and could afford a comfortable house and in 1957 he took a course in Roman Catholicism. His collection of poems In Fires No Return published in 1958 was influenced by his new faith. This was his first collection to be published internationally, though English critics were generally unimpressed. His wife, a committed Anglican, was dismayed by his Catholicism, and they separated in 1957.

In 1958 he received a UNESCO stipend and began an extended journey through Asia, and especially India. Here he was reconciled with his wife, but contracted dysentery. His writing after returning from India was more overtly critical of New Zealand society. In the 1960s he became a powerful and prolific writer of both poems and drama, and it was through his radio play Jack Winter's dream that he became internationally known.

In the first half of the 1960s he was broke and dependent on a postman's wage, having refused to take work as a schoolmaster. 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. This year (1966) he was offered and accepted the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago.

In 1968 he recalled being told in a dream 'Go to Jerusalem'. Jerusalem was a small Māori settlement (known by its Māori transliteration, Hiruharama) on the Wanganui River. He left his University position and a job composing catechetical material for the Catholic Education Board, with nothing but a bible. This was the culmination of a short period in which he struggled with family life and his vocation as a poet.

He spent some time in Auckland where he set up a centre for drug addicts acting on the same principals as Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1969 he adopted the Māori version of his name, Hemi, and moved to Jerusalem. He lived without property and made frequent trips to the nearby cities where he worked with the involuntarily poor and spoke against a social order that allows poverty. His poems of this time have a conversational style but speak strongly of his social and political convictions.

The harsh deprivations he forced on himself at this time took their toll on his health. By 1972 he was too ill to continue at Jerusalem. He moved to a commune near Auckland. On October 22, 1972 he suffered a coronary thrombosis in the street, and died in a nearby house, aged 46.

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.

His work has inspired, among others, Stephen Oliver.

[edit] Selected works

Beyond the Palisade, 1944
Blow, Wind of Fruitfulness, 1948
Hart Crane; 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, 1950000* 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

[edit] Posthumously published

Runes, 1973.
Two Obscene Poems, 1974
Barney Flanagan and Other Poems, read by James K. Baxter, 1973 (record)
The Labyrinth: Some Uncollected Poems 1944-72, 1974.
The Tree House and Other Poems for Children, 1974.
The Bone Chanter, 1976 (ed. and introd. by J.E. Weir)
The Holy Life and Death of Concrete Grady, 1976 (ed. and introd. by J.E. Weir)
Baxter Basics, 1979
Collected Poems, 1979 (edited by John Weir, reissued in 1995)
Collected Plays, 1982.
Selected Poems, 1982.
Horse: a Novel, 1985.
The Essential Baxter / selected and introduced by John Weir, 1993
Cold Spring: Baxter's Unpublished Early Collection, 1996 (edited by Paul Millar)

[edit] See also

Millicent Baxter, James Baxter's mother (a renowned pacifist)

[edit] Sources

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