Issue 11 of broadsheet: new nz poetry available now

The eleventh issue of broadsheet: new nz poetry features the North American poet Cameron La Follette from Salem, Oregon. The issue is the first journal to feature her poetry internationally. It includes comment on her work by editor Mark Pirie and Dr Niel Wright, her publisher in Wellington, New Zealand. Also included is new work by distinguished UK poet Richard Berengarten, Tony Beyer, Michael Duffett (USA), John O’Connor, John Dennison, Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle, Laura Morris, P V Reeves, Mark Pirie, and posthumous or republished work by two poets of New Zealand’s literary past:  Erihapeti Murchie (1923-1997) and O E Hugo (1855?-1915). 

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Here is the Preface to the issue by the editor Mark Pirie:

This issue features the poetry of the North American poet Cameron La Follette. It’s an honour to include her work in broadsheet.

I first published Cameron’s poetry in an issue of Poetry Notes, the first Poetry Archive of New Zealand Aotearoa newsletter in Autumn 2010.

Cameron co-founded the Classic Poetry Group in her hometown of Salem, Oregon. She had an interest in English-language classic poetry, and through her own researches discovered Australian and New Zealand poetry. She became the Australia and New Zealand editor for RPO (Representative Poetry Online), which is a project of the
University of Toronto, in hopes of making the classic poetry of those two countries more available to North Americans. Both Niel Wright and I continue to help Cameron with her research in this area.

Niel then started archiving Cameron’s own poetry in New Zealand in A4 hand-made books, which he deposited into the Alexander Turnbull Library at the National Library of New Zealand. The project when complete will run to 1,300 of Cameron’s poems, a unique archive for the Turnbull Library to have in Wellington.

Cameron has been writing poetry since childhood, but dedicated herself to it upon returning to Oregon from New York in 2001, after sixteen years there. In New York she worked as a writer and legal researcher while studying first for her Law degree, and then for a Master’s degree in Psychology. Back in Oregon, she now works for a nonprofit organization as an environmental advocate protecting Oregon’s coast. In 2006 one book of her poetry was published by a small press in Oregon.

La Follette’s poetry is lyrical, passionate, classical and traditional in approach centred around nature and wildlife themes and with classical mythology and spirituality at her core. In this mode, Cameron’s work is impressive and her overall oeuvre is building up to being quite significant.

Elsewhere in this issue is new work by Richard Berengarten, the renowned UK poet, along with work by Michael Duffett, of California.

It’s great to feature poets who haven’t appeared previously in broadsheet. The work of talented writers like Pearlie Reeves, the late Erihapeti Murchie, John Dennison, Laura Morris and Zarah Butcher-McGunnigle appears for the first time. As well, O E Hugo, a poet I came across quite recently in the Otago Witness newspaper from the 19th century also appears. Hugo is another of New Zealand’s long forgotten poets who rewards rediscovery.

Mark Pirie, Wellington, May 2013

broadsheet is published twice a year in May and November

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ISSN 1178-7805 (Print)
ISSN 1178-7813 (Online)