David Eggleton

David Eggleton is a performance poet and writer. Part Polynesian, he grew up between Fiji and New Zealand. Eggleton’s many awards include six times Book Reviewer of the Year in the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, PEN Best First Book of Poetry, the Robert Burns Fellowship and, uniquely among New Zealand poets, he was London Time Out’s Street Entertainer of the Year in 1985. He also writes non-fiction, has produced several documentaries, CDs and short films.

'David Eggleton plasters into poetry a New Zealand by turn cynical, lyrical, boring, fascinating, blind and insightful.' – Bede Scott, writing in Quote Unquote magazine, 1996

'His poetry is vital and contemporary, steeped in popular and postmodern culture. It offers a vision of New Zealand which is at once resolutely local and yet not quite recognisable or predictable – offers a vision of ourselves which defies expectation to surprise and charm.' – Louise O' Brien, Dominion Post, 2001

'Eggleton delivers poetry that is considered, pulsating with energy. It's alive on the page.' Mark Houlahan, Dominion Post, 2006  

'David Eggleton's word-blasts feel like they come from further left-of-centre than anything else written in New Zealand ... It is endlessly imaginative, it’s funny – plus intellectually rewarding.'
Nick Ascroft, Landfall, 2002