Hunter left New Zealandas a young man, travelled to Australia and through the Pacific and then worked as a journalist in America, where he met famous American writers like Ben Hecht and Carl Sandburg in Chicago and briefly married the South Carolina poet Gamel Woolsey. He also lived in Kansas City, San Francisco and New York and was a successful dramatist.
A biographical novel, Henry Whitaker, detailing his experiences with Carl Sandburg remains unpublished along with a prose work The Gull.
Hunter published his poetry in periodicals and several books of poetry appeared in his lifetime and posthumously: And Tomorrow Comes (1924, new edition, 1982), the autobiographical epic The Saga of Sinclair (1927, new edition 1981) and Call Out of Darkness (1946). An autobiography Porlock (1940) and a book of four plays Stuff O’ Dreams (1919) were also published.
In 1949, Hunter returned to New Zealand to settle in Dunedin until his death.
PANZA recognises Hunter as a significant and still largely unrecognised New Zealand poet. More of his poems will be in the next PANZA newsletter, Poetry Notes.
Reginald Hunter
THE TWO ROSES
And as the poet walked the wintry streets
In broken shoes, and lacking coins for bread,
A red rose flew its flame within his heart,
A white rose raised its petals in his head.
White rose of the unworldly held star-lifted
The vision of him whose outward steps trod mire.
Though thin his coat he did not feel the cold:
The undying rose of poesy was his fire.
Poem © Reginald Hunter, 1946
(From Call Out of Darkness, The Auburncrest Library, USA, 1946)

Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa