James K Baxter
| James K. Baxter | |
|---|---|
| Born |
James Keir Baxter 29 June 1926 Dunedin, New Zealand |
| Died | 22 October 1972 (aged 46) Auckland, New Zealand |
| Occupation | Poet |
| Movement | Wellington Group |
James Keir Baxter (29 June 1926 – 22 October 1972) was a poet, and is a celebrated figure in New Zealand society.
Baxter was born in Dunedin to Archibald Baxter and Millicent Brown and grew up near Brighton, 20 km south of Dunedin city. He was named after James Keir Hardie, a founder of the British Labour Party. His father had been a conscientious objector during the First World War. His mother had studied Latin, French and German at the Presbyterian Ladies' College, Sydney, the University of Sydney and Newnham College, University of Cambridge.
On his first day of school, Baxter burned his hand on a stove and later used this incident to represent the failure of institutional education. As a child he contrasted the social order represented by his maternal grandfather with the clan mentality of his Scottish father and frequently drew analogies between the Highland clans and the Māori tribes. Baxter states that he began writing poetry at the age of seven, and he accumulated a large body of technically accomplished work both before and during his teenage years.
In 1944, at age seventeen he joined the University of Otagoand that year he published his first collection of poetry, Beyond the Palisade, to much critical acclaim. His work during this time was, as with his contemporary compatriots, most notably the experimental novelist Janet Frame, largely influenced by the modernist works of Dylan Thomas. He was a member of the so-called "Wellington Group" of writers that also included Louis Johnson, W.H. Oliver and Alistair Campbell. Baxter typically wrote short lyrical poems or cycles of the same rather than longer poems. Baxter failed to complete his course work at the University of Otago, due to increasing alcoholism and was forced to take a range of odd jobs from 1945-7, most notably a cleaner at Chelsea Sugar Refinery, which inspired the poem "Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works".
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