David Howard

A founding editor of Takahe, David describes his writing as "gnarled, metaphysical poetry that fosters rather than forbids tenderness."

In The Listener , Kapka Kassabova writes that "Howard's greatest lyrical power is in apprehending the elusive. His is a poetry of the vanishing, of the shifting elsewhere, of loss lurking within the moment...the cerebral blends with the visceral with a brilliant lightness of touch." Harriet Zinnes of The Denver Quarterly (USA) comments, '...the forthright zing of the lines and indeed his intellectual rigor...have a kind of contemporary lyricism, that is, a lyricism that avoids excess but yet exudes tenderness and desire even as it questions their endurance, even their power.

David's long poem There You Go was recently set as a cantata for solo female voice & piano by the Czech composer Marta Jirackova. His work features in Best New Zealand Poems 2002 and 2004.

The Word Went Round was published by Otago University Press in July 2006.