Dunedin Public Libraries News & Reviews Blog

Advance notice of poets who are confirmed to be involved with us on this special day.

• Cy Matthews
• Martha Morseth
• Poppy Haynes
• David Kerena Holmes
• Larry Matthews
• Emma Neale
• Anna Kelly
• Michael Harlow
• Lydia O’Dwyer

Here are their supplied biographies:

Cy Mathews is a postgraduate student of English Literature at Otago University studying contemporary poetry and poetics. He has had work published in the Otago Daily Times, Critic, Oban’06, the New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre, and in Our Own Kind: One Hundred New Zealand Poems About Animals. He also co-edits the online literary journal Deep South. His poetry is meaningless but, he hopes, entertaining.

Martha Morseth was born in the United States and came permanently to Dunedin in 1972 where she taught high school English until 1999. Her poems and stories have been published in New Zealand literary and popular magazines and anthologies. A collection of her poems, Staying Inside the Lines, was released in 2002. With four other poets, she founded the Dunedin open mic series Upfront, spotlighting women poets. She has written three books for teenagers, published by Pearson: two short story collections – Yeah! and EDGE/a cut of unreal; and a book of one-act plays.

Poppy Haynes grew up in the bustling metropolis of Upper Hutt, coming to Dunedin in 2005. Since then, she has lived in an array of different flats, all of which have inspired poetry about being cold. She has had poetry published in The Listener, North and South, World Literature Today, The Otago Daily Times and Deep South. She has been a poetry editor for Critic, the university student magazine, since 2007 and this year is also an editor for Deep South journal. She is currently a masters student at the University of Otago and is writing her thesis on non-human voices in contemporary poetry.

David Karena-Holmes was born in Lower Hutt on the eve of the 2nd world war and came to Dunedin a couple of years later. He has lived in the Otago region for about two thirds of his life, and for other periods in England, Australia and France. He loathes wars, cruelty, factory-farming, motorcars, supermarkets, movies and television, but loves kindness, the natural world, organic-farming practice and good poetry among other things. He has been writing poetry since about the age of 10. Probably at least 95% of the poems he has written or attempted to write have, rightly, been consigned to the rubbish bin. Books currently in print are From the Antipodes: Prologue to a Work in Progress and Maori Language: Understanding the Grammar. A collection of short poems is now being prepared for publication.

Larry Matthews has recently published his first collection of poetry “Once Happy as Larry”. His work has appeared in various journals including J.A.A.M., Takahe, Glottis, Deep South and the Otago Daily Times. Larry can often be heard at poetry readings locally or performing magic on the streets of Dunedin. Larry is a former lecturer in design and was a graphic designer for the Smithsonian Institution. He plans to travel to Barcelona, perform magic, consume café con leche, paint, photograph, and write a collection of poetry about street performing and life on La Rambla.

Emma Neale is the author of four novels and three collections of poetry, the latest of which, Spark, was published last year. In 2000 she received the Todd/CNZ Bursary for New Writers, and in 2008 was the inaugural recipient of the NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award for Literature. She has recently had work appear in The Harvard Review, Bat City Review (Texas), The Red Wheelbarrow (Scotland) and on the American Poetry Daily website. She works as a senior editor at Longacre Press, and is the current poetry editor at the Otago Daily Times.

Anna Kelly is a 22 year old student working towards her MA at Otago, studying grief in the poetry of Joanna Margaret Paul and Jenny Bornholdt. Many of her poems are written during or after travelling. She is currently working on a series of prose poems written about her exchange to a French university in 2008. She has been published in Deep South and Lumiere, and passes the time working in a supermarket.

Michael Harlow has published seven books of poetry, including Giotto’s Elephant, which was a finalist in the national Book Awards for Poetry in 1991, Cassandra’s Daughter, and most recently The Tram Conductor’s Blue Cap. The Associate and Poetry Editor at Landfall magazine for some ten years, he has also been the Katherine Mansfield Fellow to Menton, France, a New Zealand-Australia Exchange Fellow, and in 2004 was the Randell Cottage Writer in Residence. A bilingual, English and Spanish, selection of poems, Today is the Piano’s Birthday, will be published in 2009 by Monte Avila (Venezuela) for their Poets from Around the World series. Michael Harlow has been awarded the Robert Burns Fellowship for 2009, and will concurrently be a Caselberg Artist in Residence at the Caselberg House in Dunedin. He lives and works in Central Otago, New Zealand as writer, editor, and Jungian therapist.

Lydia O’Dwyer manages to write poetry in between teaching in Otago and Southland in her role as Practice Specialist for Victim Support. Lydia has worked for many years as a Psychodynamic Therapist and currently has a focus on supervising the practice of others. Lydia started writing in the early 70’s and after attending John Dolan’s poetry course got to writing again. She has published in Critic, the ODT, Takahe, Literary reviews and Bravado and likes to read her work to interested parties.