Leggott, Michele

[Photograph: Joanna Forsberg]

Michele Leggott (b. 1956)

Contents:

Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance (2007):

cairo vessel

Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive (2004):

CD22

1. a woman, a rose, and what has it to do with her or they with one another?
i. Do you see me?
ii. How will you know me?
iv. Where did we get to?
2. ice
3. stone
4. Dear Heart
5. Poetry’s whatever / makes / the adrenalin run

Bio /Bibliography:

Michele Leggott, poet, critic and editor, was born in Stratford, Taranaki, and educated at New Plymouth High School and the University of Canterbury (MA in English 1979 for a thesis on the poetry of Ian Wedde). She spent 1980–85 in Canada completing a PhD on American poet Louis Zukofsky at the University of British Columbia. In 1985 she was appointed to a lectureship at the University of Auckland. Her first book of poems, Like This? (1988) won the PEN First Book of Poetry award. DIA (1994) won the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. In her next collection As Far as I Can See (1999), Leggott wrote about her deep sorrow at losing her sight. She was awarded a Blind Achievers Award by the Foundation for the Blind in 1999. Much of her critical work has been concerned with the ‘submerged’ tradition of women poets in New Zealand. In line with this, she has edited Robin Hyde's The Book of Nadath (1999) and Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde (2003).

Poetry:

Like This? (Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1988)
Swimmers, Dancers (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1991)
DIA (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1994)
as far as I can see (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999)
Milk and Honey (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2005)

Editing & Criticism:

Reading Zukofsky’s 80 Flowers (1989)
Michele Leggott & Mark William, eds. Opening the Book: New Essays on New Zealand Writing (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995)
Robin Hyde, The Victory Hymn, 1935–1995 (Auckland: Holloway Press, 1995)
Robin Hyde, The Book of Nadath. Ed. Michele Leggott. (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1999)
Robin Hyde, Young Knowledge: The Poems of Robin Hyde. Ed. Michele Leggott (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003)