Haarhaus, Isabel

[Photograph: Jan Kemp (2002)]

Isabel Haarhaus Michell (b. 1972)

Contents

Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive (2004):

CD15

1. First Reading
2. A Poem for a Friend
3. Return
4. Rain
5. Turning
6. A Poem
7. Office
8. The Dream (part 3)
9. Louise’s Place

Bio / Bibliography:

Isabel Haarhaus was born in Bad-Homburg, Germany, in 1972 and grew up in Broek-in-Waterland - a small village on the northern skirts of Amsterdam, Holland. In 1981 she and her family immigrated to New Zealand, where they settled on a farm in Opotiki, on the East Coast of the North Island. In the late 1980s, Isabel moved to Auckland to complete her secondary education and then went on to study for Bachelor and Master of Arts Degrees in English at the University of Auckland. Throughout this time, Isabel frequently went back to Europe, spending extended periods of time in Germany, Holland and Bulgaria, where she taught English at the University of Sofia. As a student Isabel published poems in Salt, an independent publication based in Auckland, and during her travels she participated in readings at Bar 13, a poetry café in New York City and Boland’s Bohemian Bar in London. Since graduating with First Class Honours, Isabel has worked as a business journalist in Westminster, London, and a freelance arts writer in Auckland. She is currently the Arts Editor of Citymix Magazine. Isabel lives in Freemans Bay with her partner and their son.

Bibliodata:

Isabel Haarhaus has contributed to the poetry journal JAAM and is currently working on a collection of poems with view to publication. The working title of the collection is “Other People’s Houses” and the poems take their cue from thank you letters written to people the poet has stayed, visited and shared some kind of exchange or intimacy with. The collection will include some of the poems recorded here.