The poet Cameron La Follette's work is currently being archived by Niel Wright in Wellington. Wright contributes the following comment on her:
"Cameron La Follette, environmentalist and poet, in her mid 50s, is a distant relative of the American political dynasty of La Follettes, in her own words ‘Senator Robert Marion La Follette Sr is in my "first cousin" line. His father and my great-great grandfather were brothers.’
Put more simply, before 1850 there were two brothers. From one descends Cameron La Follette poet. From the other descends the USA political dynasty of La Follettes.
Currently she is Australasian editor for RPO (Representative Poetry Online), a University of Toronto library website.
Her interest in New Zealand goes back to her childhood in Arizona. She is currently associated with the New Zealand poets Ruth Gilbert, Niel Wright, Mark Pirie, and Michael O’Leary.
She came under the influence of the Australian author, mythologist and poet P L Travers (of Mary Poppins fame) 30 years ago through the Parabola magazine to which P L Travers was a frequent contributor from its founding in 1976.
As such she is part of a wide ranging Pan Pacific English speaking culture, inaugurated by Captain James Cook (deceased in Hawaii in 1779), which also takes in writers Rex Hunter, Mary Barnard, Charles/Mike Doyle and Michele Leggott among many others including Peter Jackson the Tolkien film interpreter.
Her environmental papers and 1000 poems in 2013 were archived in the University of Oregon (an open collection), as also in the past were the papers of Ursula Le Guin.
Archival editions of 1,300 poems of hers are currently being published in New Zealand by myself where they are available for purchase from me at PO Box 6637, Te Aro, Wellington 6141, New Zealand. Email: nielwright@xtra.co.nz"
Other contributors include: Richard Berengarten (UK), Michael Duffett (USA), P V Reeves, John O'Connor, Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle, Tony Beyer, John Dennison, and Hawke's Bay poet Laura Morris.
No comments:
Post a Comment