- Northern Lights, Volume 2..
- James K. Baxter reading a poem – Poetry – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand.
- Go Tell It on the Mountain (Sacred Performer Duet Collections).
- The Life, Memories, and Creative Works of Mr. Joe - Book 1.
- Lettre à Ralsa Marsh (French Edition).
- Malicious Gossip.
- Poétique du village : Rencontres en Margeride (Essais - Documents) (French Edition).
In late , Baxter joined Alcoholics Anonymous, espousing its principle of helping others in a course of counselling and prison visitation that continued for the rest of his life. Some stability was achieved partly through a substantial legacy with which the family purchased a house in the Wellington suburb of Ngaio.
- A poem a day: The Maori Jesus - James K. Baxter.
- Ian Harris: The Rejected Ex?
- Thanks for the [SPAM]:The Winter/Holiday Addition;
- I Miss My Friend.
He left Epuni School in to work for School Publications, a period which provided material for numerous attacks on bureaucracy. Baxter discovered the pitfalls of parody when his skilful imitations of seventeen New Zealand poets, The Iron Breadboard: Studies in New Zealand Writing , was received with acrimony by some of his peers. Fourteen more serious poems appeared in a collaboration, The Nightshift: Critics, however, thought the book loose and poorly selected.
James K. Baxter
The script was published in Two Plays: Domestically, things were less successful. He was received into the Church in He left for Japan in September and the family joined him later in India. Baxter was overwhelmed by the poverty and the situation of ethnic minorities. The Indian poor would haunt his imagination and his poetry. Returning to New Zealand wasted by dysentery, he showed increasing disillusionment with New Zealand society. Drama became a vehicle for such criticism.
James K. Baxter reading a poem
The Wide Open Cage , which was staged in by Richard Campion, explored themes such as guilt and alienation in relationships. His argument that Curnow misrepresented the state of New Zealand poetry by under-representing younger poets did little to lessen an antipathy his erstwhile champion had developed towards him. More significant were a number of polemical poems protesting against the Vietnam War. It was a triumphant homecoming for the man who had left twenty years earlier under a cloud of failure. Baxter took an active part in university life, protesting against Vietnam and satirising the university prohibition against student cohabitation in his pamphlet A Small Ode on Mixed Flatting, Elicited by the Decision of the Otago University Authorities to Forbid this Practice Among Students.
Through all this his creative output was staggering: Revisiting the site of his painful but formative adolescence also impelled Baxter to revisit, in his poetry, the themes and locales of the verse of that period. Family memories and Otago landscapes again feature, but always with the presence of death, at times subtly, at other times looming, within the poetic frame.
- 3rd Edition. Volume 2. Explanation of Ur, Sumer, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Assyria and Akkad Artifacts, Architecture, Archeology, Seals, and Slabs.
- The Harvest.
- In The Arms Of A Stranger?
- An Interview with an Underground Doctor: A Tragedy in Four Parts?
- Comments about James K Baxter.
A marked change in style accompanied these variations on earlier themes. Yet the Fellowship appeared to have drained him of energy and refilled him with doubt. He struggled in his marriage, fearing the trap of domesticity; found difficulty relating to his children; and was dogged by the feeling that words had become impotent and should be replaced by actions. Auckland was his initial stop.
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There he failed to hold down a job Hone Tuwhare found for him at the Chelsea sugar refinery. All that came out of the experience was the trenchantly satirical poem Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works. He discovered his Auckland niche in a cluster of run-down squats in the suburb of Grafton. Number 7 Boyle Crescent, where he settled in Easter , became a drop-in centre for drug addicts.
His appearance—barefoot, bearded and shabbily dressed—attracted the attention of both media and police, who suspected his motives and morality.
By August , the Boyle Crescent period had ended and Baxter was heading for Jerusalem, to begin his commune. He recorded aspects of his philosophy of communality in Jerusalem Sonnets and J erusalem Daybook , but in practice the commune lacked order. Baxter could not regulate numbers or behaviour; the media sensationalised his activities; and the locals became increasingly uneasy.
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Problems compounded because he was often away—in Dunedin visiting his dying father; on speaking tours; and on 8 February protesting with young Maori radicals at Waitangi. His last collection, Autumn Testament , dates from this period. By August Baxter was drained, physically and emotionally. He sought refuge on a small commune in Auckland.
One cleaned toilets in the railway station; His hands were scrubbed red to get the shit out of the pores. One was a call-girl who turned it up for nothing. One was a housewife who had forgotten the Pill And stuck her TV set in the rubbish can. One was a little office clerk Who'd tried to set fire to the Government Buldings.
Yes, and there were several others; One was a sad old quean; One was an alcoholic priest Going slowly mad in a respectable parish. The Maori Jesus said, 'Man, From now on the sun will shine. The first day he was arrested For having no lawful means of support.
Poet Seers » James K Baxter
The second day he was beaten up by the cops For telling a dee his house was not in order. The third day he was charged with being a Maori And given a month in Mt Crawford. The fourth day he was sent to Porirua For telling a screw the sun would stop rising. The fifth day lasted seven years While he worked in the Asylum laundry Never out of the steam.
On the eighth day the sun did not rise.
It did not rise the day after. God was neither alive nor dead. The darkness of the Void, Mountainous, mile-deep, civilised darkness Sat on the earth from then till now. Posted by Xyphir at SeaJay December 13, at Scott Tunbridge September 22, at 7: Anonymous January 30, at 2: Dorje McKinnon January 31, at 4: Xyphir March 16, at 3: Nalin Aswani February 10, at 2: Philmc March 5, at 1: Chris Lee May 9, at 2: Unknown February 23, at Athena April 6, at 5: Dylan Is Yes September 4, at 9: Keith Johnson February 13, at Unknown February 26, at James Kohler July 15, at 9: Oscar Sheppard-Morison March 8, at 2: Unknown March 8, at 2: