Locke, Terry

[Photograph: Jan Kemp (2002)]

Terry Locke (b. 1946)

Contents

Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive (2004):

CD22

1. Prologue
2. Reply to Baxter [1-4]
3. Mid-Winter Plums
4. Home Territory [5,7 & 31]
5. The Retribution [1]
6. The Artifact
7. Watching William Dancing
8. In Train
9. The Trees Revisited
10. Rain

Bio / Bibliography:

I grew up in the working-class suburb of Sandringham, Auckland, the youngest of three children. Both my parents had left school at the age of 12, but were keen to offer me advantages they had never had, to use that cliché. That didn’t particularly include reading. Books didn’t really enter our home until I was about 11. We were staunch Catholics and I was duly sent to St Peter’s College, where I found myself in the same class as Sam Hunt and taught (for two important senior years) by K.O. Arvidson.

I spent 1965 at Holy Name Seminary in Christchurch and then began a degree in English and Mathematics, which evolved eventually into a decision to do a Ph.D. in English - leading to a grand, dusty tome entitled The Antagonistic City: A Design for Urban Imagery in Seven American Poets. I was a member of Auckland University’s Litsoc, which at the time included Ian Wedde, Bob Orr, Murray Edmond and Russell Haley. Mike Doyle was my mentor as a university student. During this time, influences on my poetry switched from England (Wordsworth and Eliot) to the U.S. (Williams, Stevens, Charles Olson, Duncan, Levertov and William Stafford). Emily Dickinson is my favourite poet but I don’t think of her as an influence.

After completing my Ph.D. I lectured in the English Department at Auckland University (in and out over a period of 9 years) and taught secondary school for 12 years. Since the beginning of 1997, 1 have worked in the Arts and Language Education Department of the School of Education at Waikato University, where I train secondary English teachers and pursue academic interests (along somewhat Foucauldian lines) around such things as professionalism, ‘new technologies’, the construction of English and educational reform. I have also done a considerable amount of poetry reviewing.

I have lived in Kingsland, Auckland, since 1979 with my wife, Linda. Together we have brought up six children (including three from a previous marriage). I owe her a lot.

Literary Publications

Single works:

After a Life in the Provinces: Poems 1975-1982, Auckland: Lindon 1983.
Home Territory, Auckland: Lindon, 1984
Maketu, Wellington: HeadworX, 2003

Edited works:

White Feathers: An Anthology of New Zealand and Pacific Island Poetry on the Theme of Peace, Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1991 (with Peter Low and John Winslade).
Doors: A Contemporary New Zealand Poetry Selection, Hamilton: Leaders Press, 2000
Jewels in the Water: Contemporary New Zealand Poetry for Younger Readers, Hamilton: Leaders Press, 2000