Orr, Bob

[Photograph: Faye Norman]

Bob Orr (b. 1949)

Contents:

Contemporary New Zealand Poets in Performance (2007):

The X
A Country Shaped like a Butterfly’s Wing
Ballad of the Great South Rd
Eternity

Aotearoa NZ Poetry Sound Archive (2004):

CD28

1. Once I Felt the Summer Breeze
2. Mending Nets
3. A Deckhand Remembers Waiheke
4. Seahorse
5. Pakiri Beach
6. Central Otago
7. On Hills that I Would Have Called Mountains
8. Pablo Neruda
9. Pablo Neruda, I Dream of your Country
10. Pohutukawa Song
11. A Country Shaped Like a Butterfly’s Wing
12. Return to the Sun
13. Remembering Akhmatova
14. The Promise
15. Hay Fever
16. Poem for my Mother
17. Ballad of the Great South Rd
18. The World Upside Down
19. A Giant on the Roof
20. Eternity
21. Paekakariki

New Zealand Poets Read Their Work (1974):

LP 1, side 2

On Out

Waiata Archive (1974):

CD 22

Journeys
The X
Sunset after Hours
On Out (for Hart Crane)
Dreams & Destinations

Bio /Bibliography:

The son of a Waikato farming family, Bob Orr was born in Hamilton in 1949, where he attended St Paul’s Collegiate. After moving to Auckland, he enrolled briefly at the University of Auckland (1967), and became prominent among the poets associated with the Auckland University Literary Society’s magazine Freed in the early 1970s. He lives in Auckland, where he works as a water-sider.

Orr has had six collections of his poetry published. In addition, his poems have been anthologized in The Young New Zealand Poets (Auckland: 1973); The Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse (1985); The Penguin Book of Contemporary New Zealand Poetry (1989), and An Anthology of New Zealand Poetry in English (Auckland: OUP, 1997). Others have appeared in Islands, Printout, Poetry NZ, and Vital Writing.

Works Published:

Blue Footpaths (London: Amphedesma Press, 1971)
Poems for Moira (Wellington: Hawk Press, 1979)
Cargo (Wellington: Voice Press, 1983)
Red Trees (Auckland: AUP, 1985)
Breeze (Auckland: AUP, 1991)
Valparaiso (Auckland: AUP, 2002)