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Allen Curnow

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Clifton-firth-curnow

Allen Curnow (1911-2001) in 1946. Photo by Clifton Firth (1904-1980). Courtesy Auckland City Libraries.

Thomas Allen Munro Curnow ONZ CBE (17 June 1911 – 23 September 2001) was a New Zealand poet and journalist.[1]

Life[]

Youth and education[]

Curnow was the son of a 4th generation New Zealander, an Anglican clergyman, and he grew up in a religious family. The family was of Cornish origin.[2] During his early childhood they often moved, living in Canterbury, Belfast, Malvern, Lyttelton and New Brighton.

Curnow was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School, Canterbury University, and Auckland University.

After completing his education he worked from 1929 to 1930 at the Christchurch Sun, before moving to Auckland to prepare for the Anglican ministry at St John's Theological College (1931–1933). In this period Curnow also published his earliest poems in University periodicals, such as Kiwi and Phoenix.

Career[]

From 1934 he returned to the South Island, where he started a correspondence with Iris Wilkinson and Alan Mulgan, as well as finding a job at the Christchurch Press, an Anglican newspaper. At the same time, he also started a lifelong friendship with Denis Glover and contributed to the Caxton Press, submitting some of his poems.

Curnow wrote a long-running weekly satirical poetry column under the pen-name of "Whim Wham" for The Press from 1937 to 1951, and then for the New Zealand Herald from 1951 until 1988 - a far-reaching period in which he turned his keen wit to many world issues. From Franco, Hitler, Vietnam, Apartheid, and the White Australia policy, to the internal politics of Walter Nash and the eras of Robert Muldoon and David Lange, all interspersed with humorous commentary on New Zealand's obsession with rugby and other light-hearted subjects.

His publication, Book of New Zealand Verse (1945), is a landmark in New Zealand literature.

He taught English at Auckland University from 1950 to 1976.

Writing[]

His poetic works are heavily influenced by his training for the Anglican ministry, and subsequent rejection of that calling, with Christian imagery, myth and symbolism included frequently, particularly in his early works (such as 'Valley of Decision'). He draws consistently on his experiences in childhood to shape a number of his poems, reflecting perhaps a childlike engagement with the environment in which he grew up, these poems bringing the hopeful, curious, questioning voice that a childlike view entails.

Curnow's work of course is not all so innocently reflective. The satirist in Curnow is certainly not pushed aside in his poetic works, but is explored instead with a greater degree of emotional connectivity and self reflection.

His works concerning the New Zealand Landscape and the sense of isolation experienced by one who lives in an island colony are perhaps his most moving and most deeply pertinent works regarding the New Zealand condition. His landscape/isolation centered poetry reflects varying degrees of engaged fear, guilt, accusation, rage and possessiveness, creating an important but, both previously and still, much neglected dialog with the New Zealand landscape. He positions himself as an outside critic (he was far less religiously and politically involved than contemporaries like James K. Baxter, and far more conventional in his lifestyle also) and though perhaps less impassioned in his writing than his contemporaries, his poetic works are both prophetic and intelligent.

Recognition[]

Curnow received 3 New Zealand Book Awards for Poetry: for An Incorrigible Music (1980), You Will Know When You Get There (1983), and The Loop in the Lone Kauri Road (1987).[3]

He was the 1983 recipient of the Meridian Energy Katherine Mansfield Memorial Fellowship. One of New Zealand's most long-standing and prestigious literary awards, the fellowship is offered annually to enable a New Zealand writer to work in Menton, France.[3]

He was awarded the A.W. Reed Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.[3]

The Bells of Saint Babel's (2001) received the Montana Award for Poetry at the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.[3]

Awards[]

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Valley of Decision : Poems. Auckland, NZ: Auckland University College Students' Association Press, 1933.
  • Another Argo: three poems from the Caxton Club Press (including "Doom at sunrise"). Christchurch: Caxton Club Press, 1933.[4]
  • Three poems ("Aspect of Monism," "Restraint," "The Wilderness"). Christchurch, NZ: Caxton Club Press, 1935.
  • Poetry and Language. Christchurch, NZ: Caxton Club Press, 1935.
  • Enemies: Poems, 1934-36. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1937.
  • Not in Narrow Seas: Poems with prose. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1939.
  • A Present for Hitler, and other verses, Christchurch: Caxton Press, [1940?]
  • Recent Poems (by Allen Curnow, A.R.D. Fairburn, Denis Glover, & R.A.K. Mason). Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1941.
  • Island and Time. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1941.
  • Whim-Wham: Verses, 1941-42. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1942.
  • Whim-Wham: Verses, 1943. Wellington: Progressive Publishing Society, 1943.
  • Sailing or Drowning: Poems. Wellington: Progressive Publishing Society, [1944?]
  • Poems: Jack Without Magic. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1946.
  • At Dead Low Water, and sonnets, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1949.
  • The Axe: a verse tragedy, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1949.
  • Poems 1949-57, Wellington: Mermaid Press, 1957.
  • The Hucksters and the University; or, Out of site, out of mind; or, Up Queen Street without a paddle (broadsheet). Auckland: Pilgrim Press, 1957.
  • Mr Huckster of 1958: Another and still happier little poem... (broadsheet). Auckland: Pilgrim Press, 1958.
  • The Best of Whim-Wham. Hamilton, NZ: Paul's Book Arcade, 1959.
  • Landfall in Unknown Seas. Welllington: R.E. Owen, Government printer, 1959.
  • On the Tour: Verwoerd Be Our Vatchwoerd... (broadsheet). Auckland: Pilgrim Press, 1960.
  • A Small Room With Large Windows: Selected poems. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1962.
  • Whim Wham Land, Auckland: Blackwood & Janet Paul, 1967.
  • Trees, Effigies, Moving Objects: A sequence of poems. Wellington: Catspaw Press, 1972.
  • An Abominable Temper, and other poems. Wellington: Catspaw Press, 1973.
  • Collected Poems 1933-1973, Wellington: A.H. and A.W. Reed, 1974.
  • An Incorrigible Music: A sequence of poems. Dunedin, NZ: Auckland University Press, 1979.
  • Selected poems, Auckland, NZ: Penguin, 1982.
  • You Will Know When You Get There: Poems, 1979-1981, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1982.
  • The Loop in Lone Kauri Road: Poems, 1983-1985. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986.
  • Continuum: New and later poems, 1972-1988, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1988.
  • Selected Poems, 1940-1989. London & New York: Viking, 1990; Harmondsworth, UK: Penguiun, 1990.
  • Looking West, Late Afternoon, Low Water(limited edition, designed by Alan Loney). Auckland: Holloway Press, 1994.
  • Penguin Modern Poets 7: Second series (with Donald Davie & Samuel Menashe). London & New York: Penguin, 1996.
  • Early Days Yet: New and collected poems, 1941-1997. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1997; Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 1997.
  • The Bells of Saint Babel's: Poems, 1997-2001, Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2001; Manchester, UK: Carcanet Press, 2001.
  • Whim Wham's New Zealand: The best of Whim Wham, 1937-1988 (edited by Terry Sturm). Auckland, NZ: Vintage, 2005.

Plays[]

  • Four Plays (The Axe, The Overseas Expert, The Duke's Miracle, Resident of Nowhere). Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed, 1972.

Non-fiction[]

  • Look Back Harder: Critical writings, 1935-1984 (edited by Peter Simpson). Auckland, NZ: Auckland University Press, 1987.

Edited[]

  • A Book of New Zealand Verse, 1923-1945. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1945.
    • 2nd edition, A Book of New Zealand Verse 1923-1950. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1951,
  • Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books, 1960.
The_Continuum_by_Allen_Curnow

The Continuum by Allen Curnow


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.[5]

See also[]

References[]

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Curnow, Allen, New Zealand Book Council. Web, Jan. 4, 2014.
  2. ↑ White, G. Pawley, A Handbook of Cornish Surnames.(Curnow is himself mentioned by Rowse)
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Curnow, Allen, New Zealand Book Council. Web, Jan. 4, 2014.
  4. ↑ "Allen Curnow." New Zealand Literature File, Auckland Library. Web, Jan. 4, 2014.
  5. ↑ Search results = au:Allen Curnow, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, Jan. 4, 2014.

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