Cilla McQueen

Cilla McQueen is a major New Zealand poet. In 2009 she was named New Zealand Poet Laureate. Fire-penny, published by Otago University Press in 2005, is her tenth collection of poetry. A Wind Harp features McQueen reading a selection of her poems – an unforgettable cd.

Her previous, now out of print, volumes are Homing In (1982), Anti Gravity (1984), Wild Sweets (1986), Benzina (1988), Berlin Diary (1990), and Crikey (1993).

Markings (2000), Axis (2001), Soundings (2002) are in print and are published by Otago University Press. A new volume, The Radio Room is forthcoming in November 2010.

Cilla McQueen's poems include themes of homeland and loss, indigeneity, colonisation and displacement. She writes as a descendant of the colonised on St Kilda in the Hebrides. Her writing reflects her engagement with the history and present reality of the Maori people of Murihiku.

Her poetry is accessible and wide-ranging – from deft playing with language to taut, formal verses.

Selected awards:

New Zealand Book Award for Poetry (for Homing In), 1983
PEN/Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry, 1983
Air New Zealand/PEN  Travel Award, to Australia, 1984
Robert Burns Fellowship, Otago University, 1985 & 1986
Fulbright Visiting Writer's Fellowship, Stanford University, 1985
Inaugural Australia-New Zealand Writers' Exchange Fellowship 1987
Goethe Institut Scholarship. Berlin, 1988
New Zealand Book Award for Poetry (for Benzina), 1989
New Zealand Book Award for Poetry (for Berlin Diary), 1991
Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council Scholarship in Letters, 1992
Council Member, Creative New Zealand, 1996–1998
Southland Art Foundation Artist in Residence, 1999
New Zealand Poet Laureate, 2009-2011
Prime Minister’s Awards for Literary Achievement (Poetry) 2010