James K. Baxter
Encyclopedia
James Keir Baxter was a poet, and is a celebrated figure in New Zealand
society.
to Archibald Baxter
and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton
. He was named after James Keir Hardie
, a founder of the British Labour Party. His father had been a conscientious objector
during the First World War. His mother had studied at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney
, the University of Sydney
and Newnham College.
On his first day of school, Baxter burned his hand on a stove and later used this incident to represent the failure of institutional education
. As a child he contrasted the social order represented by his maternal grandfather with the clan mentality of his Scottish father and frequently drew analogies between the Highland clans and the Māori tribes
.
Baxter, like the comparable Francis Webb
in Australia, claims to have begun writing poetry at the age of seven, and it is certain that he accumulated a large body of technically-accomplished work both before and during his teenage years. He continued to write throughout his lifetime, although his frequent shifts of religion and lifestyle were the center of much controversy and speculation.
In 1944, at age seventeen he joined the University of Otago
and that year he published his first collection of poetry, Beyond the Palisades, to much critical acclaim. His work during this time was, as with his contemporary compatriots, most notably the experimental novelist Janet Frame
, largely influenced by the modernist works of Dylan Thomas
. He was a member of the so-called "Wellington Group" of writers that also included Louis Johnson, W.H. Oliver and Alistair Campbell
. Baxter typically wrote short lyrical poems or cycles of the same rather than longer poems.
Baxter failed to complete his course work at the University of Otago
and was forced to take a range of odd jobs, most notably a cleaner at Chelsea Sugar Refinery
, which inspired the poem "Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works". In 1948 he married Jacqueline Sturm
, and at about the same time his interest in Christianity culminated in his joining the Catholic church.
In February 1951 Baxter enrolled at Wellington
Teachers’ College. In 1952 his son, John, was born and a selection of poems in a collaborative volume, Poems unpleasant, was published. Having completed his course at teachers’ college in December, Baxter spent 1953 in full-time study at Victoria University
College and published his third major collection, The fallen house. In 1954 he was appointed assistant master at Epuni School, Lower Hutt
. He received a BA in 1956.
While at the University of Otago
Baxter began drinking heavily. By 1954 he had joined Alcoholics Anonymous
. By 1955 he had garnered a substantial legacy and could afford a comfortable house in Ngaio
, Wellington. He left Epuni School early in 1956 to write and edit primary school bulletins for the Department of Education’s
School Publications Branch. This period is likely to have influenced his writing providing material for numerous attacks on bureaucracy.
In 1957 Baxter took a course in Roman Catholicism, and his collection of poems In Fires of No Return, published in 1958, was influenced by his new faith. This was his first work to be published internationally, though English critics were largely nonplussed. His wife, a committed Anglican, was dismayed by his Catholicism, and they divorced in 1957. Through the late 50s and 60s Baxter visited the Southern Star Abbey
a Cistercian monastery at Kopua near Central Hawke's Bay.
The following year, 1958, Baxter received a UNESCO
stipend and began an extended journey through Asia, and especially India
, where Rabindranath Tagore
's university Shantiniketan was one of the inspirations for Baxter's later community at Jerusalem. Here he was reconciled with his wife and contracted dysentery
. His writing after returning from India was more overtly critical of New Zealand society. In the 1960s he became a powerful and prolific writer of both poems and drama, and it was through his radio play Jack Winter's dream that he became internationally known.
The first half of the 1960s saw Baxter struggling to make ends meet on his postman's wage, having refused to take work as a schoolmaster. However, it was at this time that the collection of poems Pig Island Letters was published in which his writing found a new level of clarity. In 1966, Baxter took up the Robert Burns Fellowship
at the University of Otago
.
In 1968 Baxter claimed that he had been instructed in a dream to 'Go to Jerusalem'. Jerusalem
was a small Māori settlement (known by its Māori transliteration, Hiruharama) on the Whanganui River
. He left his University position and a job composing catechetical material for the Catholic Education Board, with nothing but a bible. This was the culmination of a short period in which he struggled with family life and his vocation as a poet.
Baxter spent some time in Grafton, Auckland
where he set up a centre for drug addicts acting on the same principles as Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1969 he adopted the Māori version of his name, Hemi, and moved to Jerusalem. He lived a sparse existence and made frequent trips to the nearby cities where he worked with the poor and spoke out against what he perceived as a social order that sanctions poverty. His poems of this time have a conversational style but speak strongly of his social and political convictions.
The harsh deprivations Baxter adopted at this time took their toll on his health. By 1972 he was too ill to continue living at Jerusalem and moved to a commune
near Auckland
. On 22 October 1972 he suffered a coronary thrombosis
in the street and died in a nearby house, aged 46. He was buried at Jerusalem on Māori land in front of "the Top House" where he had lived, in a ceremony combining Māori and Catholic traditions.
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
society.
Biography
Baxter was born in DunedinDunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
to Archibald Baxter
Archibald Baxter
Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter was a New Zealand pacifist, socialist, and anti-war activist.He refused to serve during the first world war, on the grounds that "all war is wrong, futile, and destructive alike to victor and vanquished." So he was arrested in 1917, imprisoned, then shipped to the...
and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton
Brighton, New Zealand
"Ocean View, New Zealand" redirects here. For the inner Dunedin suburb occasionally referred to as Ocean View, see Andersons BayBrighton is a small seaside town within the city limits of Dunedin, in New Zealand's South Island. It is located 20 kilometres southwest from the city centre on the...
. He was named after James Keir Hardie
Keir Hardie
James Keir Hardie, Sr. , was a Scottish socialist and labour leader, and was the first Independent Labour Member of Parliament elected to the Parliament of the United Kingdom...
, a founder of the British Labour Party. His father had been a conscientious objector
Conscientious objector
A conscientious objector is an "individual who has claimed the right to refuse to perform military service" on the grounds of freedom of thought, conscience, and/or religion....
during the First World War. His mother had studied at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney
Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney
The Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney is an independent, Presbyterian, day and boarding school for girls in Croydon, an inner-western suburb of Sydney, Australia...
, the University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
and Newnham College.
On his first day of school, Baxter burned his hand on a stove and later used this incident to represent the failure of institutional education
Education
Education in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
. As a child he contrasted the social order represented by his maternal grandfather with the clan mentality of his Scottish father and frequently drew analogies between the Highland clans and the Māori tribes
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...
.
Baxter, like the comparable Francis Webb
Francis Webb (poet)
Francis Charles Webb-Wagg was an Australian poet who published under the name Francis Webb. "Diagnosed as suffering from schizophrenia in the 1950s, he spent most of his adult life in and out of psychiatric hospitals, writing poetry against terrible odds." He is widely regarded as one of...
in Australia, claims to have begun writing poetry at the age of seven, and it is certain that he accumulated a large body of technically-accomplished work both before and during his teenage years. He continued to write throughout his lifetime, although his frequent shifts of religion and lifestyle were the center of much controversy and speculation.
In 1944, at age seventeen he joined the University of Otago
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
and that year he published his first collection of poetry, Beyond the Palisades, to much critical acclaim. His work during this time was, as with his contemporary compatriots, most notably the experimental novelist Janet Frame
Janet Frame
Janet Paterson Frame, ONZ, CBE was a New Zealand author. She wrote eleven novels, four collections of short stories, a book of poetry, an edition of juvenile fiction, and three volumes of autobiography during her lifetime. Since her death, a twelfth novel, a second volume of poetry, and a handful...
, largely influenced by the modernist works of Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
. He was a member of the so-called "Wellington Group" of writers that also included Louis Johnson, W.H. Oliver and Alistair Campbell
Alistair Campbell (poet)
Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, ONZM was a New Zealand poet, playwright, and novelist. His father was a New Zealand Scot and his mother a Cook Island Maori from Penrhyn Island.-Biography:...
. Baxter typically wrote short lyrical poems or cycles of the same rather than longer poems.
Baxter failed to complete his course work at the University of Otago
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
and was forced to take a range of odd jobs, most notably a cleaner at Chelsea Sugar Refinery
Chelsea Sugar Refinery
The Chelsea Sugar Refinery, also known colloquially as "Chelsea" and the "sugar works", is a long-established business and landmark in Birkenhead, New Zealand, located on the northern shore of Auckland's Waitemata Harbour. It was established in 1884, and remains New Zealand's main source of sugar...
, which inspired the poem "Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works". In 1948 he married Jacqueline Sturm
Jacqueline Sturm
Jacqueline Cecilia Sturm, also known as Jacqueline Baxter was a poet and writer of short stories. She was born in Opunake, Taranaki, New Zealand, and was the first Māori woman to complete an undergraduate university degree, at Victoria University College, followed by an MA in Philosophy...
, and at about the same time his interest in Christianity culminated in his joining the Catholic church.
In February 1951 Baxter enrolled at Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
Teachers’ College. In 1952 his son, John, was born and a selection of poems in a collaborative volume, Poems unpleasant, was published. Having completed his course at teachers’ college in December, Baxter spent 1953 in full-time study at Victoria University
Victoria University of Wellington
Victoria University of Wellington was established in 1897 by Act of Parliament, and was a former constituent college of the University of New Zealand. It is particularly well known for its programmes in law, the humanities, and some scientific disciplines, but offers a broad range of other courses...
College and published his third major collection, The fallen house. In 1954 he was appointed assistant master at Epuni School, Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt is a city in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Its council has adopted the name Hutt City Council, but neither the New Zealand Geographic Board nor the Local Government Act recognise the name Hutt City. This alternative name can lead to confusion, as there are two cities in the...
. He received a BA in 1956.
While at the University of Otago
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
Baxter began drinking heavily. By 1954 he had joined Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
. By 1955 he had garnered a substantial legacy and could afford a comfortable house in Ngaio
Ngaio, New Zealand
Ngaio is an inner suburb of Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand. It is situated on the slopes of Mount Kaukau, 3500 metres north of the city's CBD. It was settled at the same time as the neighbouring suburb of Khandallah, and like its neighbour many of its streets are named after places on...
, Wellington. He left Epuni School early in 1956 to write and edit primary school bulletins for the Department of Education’s
Department of Education (New Zealand)
The New Zealand Department of Education was, pre-1989, the public service department of the New Zealand Government responsible for pre-tertiary education...
School Publications Branch. This period is likely to have influenced his writing providing material for numerous attacks on bureaucracy.
In 1957 Baxter took a course in Roman Catholicism, and his collection of poems In Fires of No Return, published in 1958, was influenced by his new faith. This was his first work to be published internationally, though English critics were largely nonplussed. His wife, a committed Anglican, was dismayed by his Catholicism, and they divorced in 1957. Through the late 50s and 60s Baxter visited the Southern Star Abbey
Southern Star Abbey
The Abbey of our Lady of the Southern Star or Southern Star Abbey is a Cistercian abbey located in a remote, rural area of the North Island, New Zealand in the Diocese of Palmerston North. It is of the Trappist tradition . The monastery supports itself by operating a dairy farm...
a Cistercian monastery at Kopua near Central Hawke's Bay.
The following year, 1958, Baxter received a UNESCO
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations...
stipend and began an extended journey through Asia, and especially India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, where Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
's university Shantiniketan was one of the inspirations for Baxter's later community at Jerusalem. Here he was reconciled with his wife and contracted dysentery
Dysentery
Dysentery is an inflammatory disorder of the intestine, especially of the colon, that results in severe diarrhea containing mucus and/or blood in the faeces with fever and abdominal pain. If left untreated, dysentery can be fatal.There are differences between dysentery and normal bloody diarrhoea...
. His writing after returning from India was more overtly critical of New Zealand society. In the 1960s he became a powerful and prolific writer of both poems and drama, and it was through his radio play Jack Winter's dream that he became internationally known.
The first half of the 1960s saw Baxter struggling to make ends meet on his postman's wage, having refused to take work as a schoolmaster. However, it was at this time that the collection of poems Pig Island Letters was published in which his writing found a new level of clarity. In 1966, Baxter took up the Robert Burns Fellowship
Robert Burns Fellowship
The Robert Burns Fellowship, established in 1958 as a bicentennial celebration, is claimed to be New Zealand's premier literary residency. The list of past fellows includes many of New Zealand's most notable writers....
at the University of Otago
University of Otago
The University of Otago in Dunedin is New Zealand's oldest university with over 22,000 students enrolled during 2010.The university has New Zealand's highest average research quality and in New Zealand is second only to the University of Auckland in the number of A rated academic researchers it...
.
In 1968 Baxter claimed that he had been instructed in a dream to 'Go to Jerusalem'. Jerusalem
Jerusalem, New Zealand
Jerusalem was once an important kainga on the Whanganui River in New Zealand where a Roman Catholic mission was first established in 1854....
was a small Māori settlement (known by its Māori transliteration, Hiruharama) on the Whanganui River
Whanganui River
The Whanganui River is a major river in the North Island of New Zealand.Known for many years as the Wanganui River, the river's name reverted to Whanganui in 1991, according with the wishes of local iwi. Part of the reason was also to avoid confusion with the Wanganui River in the South Island...
. He left his University position and a job composing catechetical material for the Catholic Education Board, with nothing but a bible. This was the culmination of a short period in which he struggled with family life and his vocation as a poet.
Baxter spent some time in Grafton, Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
where he set up a centre for drug addicts acting on the same principles as Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1969 he adopted the Māori version of his name, Hemi, and moved to Jerusalem. He lived a sparse existence and made frequent trips to the nearby cities where he worked with the poor and spoke out against what he perceived as a social order that sanctions poverty. His poems of this time have a conversational style but speak strongly of his social and political convictions.
The harsh deprivations Baxter adopted at this time took their toll on his health. By 1972 he was too ill to continue living at Jerusalem and moved to a commune
Commune (intentional community)
A commune is an intentional community of people living together, sharing common interests, property, possessions, resources, and, in some communes, work and income. In addition to the communal economy, consensus decision-making, non-hierarchical structures and ecological living have become...
near Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
. On 22 October 1972 he suffered a coronary thrombosis
Coronary thrombosis
Coronary thrombosis is a form of thrombosis affecting the coronary circulation. It is associated with stenosis subsequent to clotting. The condition is considered as a type of ischaemic heart disease.It can lead to a myocardial infarction...
in the street and died in a nearby house, aged 46. He was buried at Jerusalem on Māori land in front of "the Top House" where he had lived, in a ceremony combining Māori and Catholic traditions.
Work
In his critical study Lives of Poets, Michael Schmidt defines Baxter's 'Jacobean consonantal rhetoric'. Schmidt has claimed that Baxter was 'one of the most precocious poets of the century' whose neglect outside of New Zealand is baffling. His writing was affected by his alcoholism. His work drew upon Dylan Thomas and Yeats; then on MacNeice and Lowell. Michael Schmidt identifies 'an amalgam of Hopkins, Thomas and native atavisms' in Baxter's 'Prelude N.Z.'Books (selected)
- Beyond the Palisade, 1944
- Blow, Wind of Fruitfulness, 1948
- Hart Crane; a poem, 1948
- Recent Trends in New Zealand Poetry, 1951
- Poems Unpleasant, 1952 (with Louis Johnson and Anton Vogt)
- Rapunzel: a Fantasia for Six Voices, 1953
- The Fallen House, 1953
- The Fire and the Anvil, 1955
- Traveller’s Litany, 1955
- The Iron Breadboard: Studies in New Zealand Writing, 1950000* The Night Shift: Poems on Aspects of Love, 1957 (with Charles Doyle, Louis Johnson and Kendrick SmithymanKendrick SmithymanWilliam Kendrick Smithyman was an award-winning New Zealand poet and one of the most prolific of that nation's poets in the 20th century.-Family and early life:...
) - In Fires of No Return, 1958
- Chosen Poems, 1958
- Two Plays: The Wide Open Cage and Jack Winter's Dream, 1959
- The Ballad of Calvary Street, 1960
- Howrah Bridge and Other Poems, 1961
- Three Women and the Sea, 1961
- The Spots of the Leopard, 1962
- The Ballad of the Soap Powder Lock-Out, 1963
- A Selection of Poetry, 1964
- Pig Island Letters, 1966
- Aspects of Poetry in New Zealand, 1967
- The Lion Skin, 1967.
- The Man on the Horse, 1967
- The Bureaucrat, 1968 (prod.)
- The Rock Woman: Selected Poems, 1969
- Jerusalem Sonnets: Poems for Colin Durning, 1970
- The Flowering Cross, 1970
- The Devil and Mr Mulcahy, and The Band Rotunda, 1971 (plays)
- Jerusalem Daybook, 1971
- The Sore-Footed Man, and The Temptations of Oedipus, 1971 (plays)
- Ode to Auckland and Other Poems, 1972
- Autumn Testament, 1972 (reissued in 1998, edited by Paul Millar)
- Four God Songs, 1972
- Letter to Peter Olds, 1972
Posthumously published
- Runes, 1973.
- Two Obscene Poems, 1974
- Barney Flanagan and Other Poems, read by James K. Baxter, 1973 (record)
- The Labyrinth: Some Uncollected Poems 1944–72, 1974.
- The Tree House and Other Poems for Children, 1974.
- The Bone Chanter, 1976 (ed. and introd. by J.E. Weir)
- The Holy Life and Death of Concrete Grady, 1976 (ed. and introd. by J.E. Weir)
- Baxter Basics, 1979
- Collected Poems, 1979 (edited by John Weir, reissued in 1995)
- Collected Plays, 1982 (edited by Howard McNaughton)
- Selected Poems, 1982 (edited by John Weir)
- Horse: a Novel, 1985
- The Essential Baxter / selected and introduced by John Weir, 1993
- Cold Spring: Baxter's Unpublished Early Collection, 1996 (edited by Paul Millar)
- James K. Baxter: Poems / selected and introduced by Sam Hunt, 2009
External links
- International Institute of Modern Letters
- "'He Waiata o Hemi' an unpublished poem by Baxter". Essay by Peter Whiteford, University of wellington.
- " ‘He Who Would Be a Poet’: James K. Baxter's Early Poetry Manuscript Books". Essay by Paul Millar