Sinclair, Keith

[Photograph: Marti Friedlander]

Keith Sinclair (1922-1993)

Contents:

Classic New Zealand Poets in Performance (2006):

E. D. S. (1893-1969)
The Bomb is Made

New Zealand Poets Read Their Work (1974):

LP 2, side 1

The Tree and the Bird
A Night full of Nothing

Waiata Archive (1974):

CD 9

E. D. S. (1893-1969)
Probably a Blackbird
Goat Island Valley
The Cannibal
The Grin
Logic of Gods
The Tree and the Bird
A Night Full of Nothing

CD 10

The Ballad of Half-Moon Bay
The Bomb is made …

CD 13

Song Sung by Te Rauparaha

Bio /Bibliography:

Sir Keith Sinclair was born in Herne Bay, Auckland on the 5th of December, 1922. He was educated at Mt Albert Grammar and Auckland Teachers’ Training College (taking a number of papers simultaneously at Auckland University College). Called up for the Territorial Army in December 1941, he later transferred overseas to be trained as an officer in the British Navy. On his return to New Zealand in 1946, he completed an MA in History.

With his friends Kendrick Smithyman and Bob Chapman, he formed the so-called “mudflat” school of New Zealand poetry, publishing his first book of poems, Songs for a Summer, in 1952.

Generally considered one of New Zealand’s most influential historians, his publications in that field include The Origins of the Maori Wars (1957), The Penguin History of New Zealand (1959), and Kinds of Peace: Maori People after the Wars (1991), as well as biographies of William Pember Reeves (1965) and Walter Nash (1976).

He was Professor of History at Auckland University until his retirement in 1987. He was married twice, first to Mary Land, and subsequently to fellow historian Raewyn Dalziel. The best of his poetry is collected in the late book Moontalk (1993).


Selected Bibliography

Poetry:
Songs for a Summer: & Other Poems. Christchurch: Pegasus Press, 1952.
Strangers or Beasts: Poems. Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1954.
A Time to Embrace. Hamilton: Paul's Book Arcade, 1963. Poems.
The Firewheel Tree. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1973.
Cabbage Press Anthology. Auckland: Cabbage Press, 1979.
[with Murray Edmond & C. K. Stead]. Three Poems for Kendrick Smithyman. Auckland: Dept of English, University of Auckland, 1987.
Moontalk: Poems New and Selected. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1993.

Prose:
The Origins of the Maori Wars. Auckland: New Zealand University Press, 1957.
A History of New Zealand. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959.
Distance Looks Our Way: The Effects of Remoteness on New Zealand. Hamilton: Paul’s Book Arcade, 1961.
[with W. F. Mandle] Open Account: A History of the Bank of New South Wales in New Zealand 1861-1961. Christchurch: Whitcombe & Tombs, 1961.
William Pember Reeves: New Zealand Fabian. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965.
Walter Nash. Auckland & New York: Auckland & Oxford University Press, 1976.
The Reefs of Fire. Illustrated by David Armitage. Auckland: Heinemann, 1977.
[with Wendy Harrex] Looking Back: A Photographic History of New Zealand. Wellington: Oxford University Press, 1978.
A History of the University of Auckland 1883-1983. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1983.
[with Judith Bassett and Marcia Stenson] The Story of New Zealand. Auckland: Heinemann Reed, 1985.
A Destiny Apart: New Zealand’s Search for a National Identity. Wellington: Allen & Unwin / Port Nicholson Press,1986.
Kinds of Peace: Maori People after the Wars. Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1991.
The Oxford Illustrated History of New Zealand. Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Halfway Round the Harbour: an Autobiography. Auckland: Penguin Books, 1993.