Terry Locke

Terry James Locke (born 1946) PhD (1976) (Auck) is a New Zealand poet, anthologist, poetry reviewer and academic.

Terry Locke was born in Auckland and grew up in the suburb of Sandringam, the youngest of three children. He attended St Peter's College where he was in the same class as Sam Hunt and was taught "for two important senior years" by K O Arvidson. He was dux of the college in 1964 and in 1965 was awarded a Junior National University Scholarship. In 1965 Locke attended Holy Name Seminary in Christchurch and then commenced a degree in English and Mathematics at Auckland University, eventually completing a PhD in English. His doctoral thesis was on the subject,The Antagonistic City: A Design for Urban Imagery in Seven American Poets. During that time he was also a social activist and was involved in the foundation of Youthline with Father Felix Donnelly. He was the Director of Youthline and was involved in other social and Catholic initiatives. He later wrote a history of Youthline.

While completing his PhD and afterwards, Locke lectured from time to time in the English Department at Auckland University over a period of nine years (1970–1976 and 1980–1983). He was editor of Rapport for four years. In 1971-2 he was a visiting Research Fellow at Yale University while working on his PhD thesis. He also taught at secondary school level for twelve years. Since the beginning of 1997, he has worked in the Arts and Language Education Department of the School of Education at Waikato University, where he trains secondary English teachers and pursues academic interests in such areas as "professionalism, 'new technologies', the construction of English and educational reform". Locke is a Professor in English/Language Education. He is also a notable poetry reviewer.

As a student at Auckland University Locke associated with other new poets such as Ian Wedde, Bob Orr, Murray Edmond and Russell Haley. He has stated that his poetic influences include William Wordsworth, T S Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov and William Stafford. Emily Dickinson is his favourite poet but he has stated that she has not influenced his poetry. His early poems were published in Landfall, Morepork and Tango and some of those were republished in his first book of poems, After a Life in the Provinces, published in 1983. His home in the old villa in Kingsland, provides the setting for his second book of poems, Home Territory (Lindon, 1984). Locke's third book of poems Maketu (concerning Phillip Tapsell) was published in 2003 and his fourth collection, Ranging around the zero, appeared in 2014. Locke has also edited or co-edited three anthologies of New Zealand poetry

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