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Roddick front

Charles Brasch

Selected Poems

Chosen by Alan Roddick

Charles Brasch (1909–1973) was the founder and first editor of Landfall, New Zealand's premier journal of literature and ideas.

Born in Dunedin, he grew up to be at home in the literature, art and architecture of Europe, but returned to devote his life to the arts in his own country – as editor, critic, collector and patron.

Brasch's vocation, however, was to be a poet. As he said in his memoir Indirections, in writing poems he “discovered New Zealand … because New Zealand lived in me as no other country could live, part of myself as I was part of it, the world I breathed and wore from birth, my seeing and my language”.

This selection shows his journey of discovery, as Charles Brasch learned by reading poets such as Rilke, W.B. Yeats and Robert Graves to find his own voice as “a citizen of the English
Language”.

It is presented as a beautifully bound cased edition


Pointer cover

China and New Zealand 1790-1950

200 years of conflict and change

By Margaret Pointer

Tiny Niue lies alone in the south Pacific, a single island with formidable cliffs rising from the deep ocean. Far from the main shipping routes and with a daunting reputation, “Savage Island” did not naturally invite visitors.

Yet Niue has a surprisingly rich history of contact, from the brief landings by James Cook in 1774 through to the 19th-century visits by whalers, traders and missionaries, and into the 20th century when New Zealand extended its territory to include the Cook Islands and Niue.

To date, this story has not been told. Using a wide range of archival material from Niue, New Zealand, Australia and Britain, Margaret Pointer places Niue centre stage in an entertaining and thoroughly readable account of this island nation through to 1974, when Niue became self-governing.

As important as the written story is the visual record and many remarkable images are published here for the first time. Together, text and images unravel a fascinating and colourful Pacific story of Nukututaha, the island that stands alone.

For further information:

Otago University Press
Website otago.ac.nz/press
Email university.press@otago.ac.nz

Books by Otago alumni

Among Secret Beauties: A Memoir of Mountaineering in New Zealand and the Himalayas, by Brian Wilkins, Otago University Press, 2013.

Little Truff Saves the Kereru, by Ann Russell, AM Publishing for Ann Russell Publisher, September 2014.

The Adventures of Angel-Louise and Friends: Christmas in my New Home, by Julie Fawcett, illustrated by Charlie Saies-Allen, December 2014.

The Complete Recovery Room Book, 5th edition, by Anthea Hatfield, Oxford University Press, 2014.

Featherweight – reflections, by Janet Carrington, Kererū Press, 2014.

The Healthy Country? A History of Life & Death in New Zealand, by Alistair Woodward and Tony Blakely, Auckland University Press, October 2014.

By Students For Students: A History of the Otago Polytechnic Students' Association 1964–2014, by Ian Dougherty, Otago Polytechnic Students' Association, October 2014.

Voice and Agency: Empowering Women and Girls for Shared Prosperity, co-authored by Sarah Twigg (with Jeni Klugman, Lucia Hanmer, Tazeen Hasan, Jenifer McCleary-Sills, Julieth Santamaria), World Bank, Washington DC, 2014.

Climate, Science, and Colonization: Histories from Australia and New Zealand, edited by James Beattie, Emily O'Gorman and Matt Henry, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, 2014.

Eco-Cultural Networks and the British Empire: New Views on Environmental History, edited by James Beattie, Edward D. Melillo and Emily O'Gorman, Bloomsbury, London, New York, 2014.

CyPosium – the book, edited by Annie Abrahams and Helen Varley Jamieson, Link Editions and La Panacée, Centre de Culture Contemporaine, Montpellier (co-publishers), November 2014.

Slice of Heaven: Climbs and Scrambles on Seven Continents, by Ross Cullen, Elcho Publications, Christchurch, December 2014.

If you have recently published a book, please email the magazine editor.

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