Elizabeth Edwina Smither (born 15 September 1941) is a New Zealand poet and writer.
Life and career
Smither was born in
New Plymouth
New Plymouth () is the major city of the Taranaki region on the west coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is named after the English city of Plymouth, in Devon, from where the first English settlers to New Plymouth migrated. The New Pl ...
, and worked there part-time as a librarian.
Her first collection of poetry, ''Here Come the Clouds'', was published in 1975, when she was in her mid-thirties.
She has since published over fifteen poetry collections, as well as several short story collections and novels.
Her work has won numerous notable awards, including three times the
top poetry award at the New Zealand Book Awards.
In 2002, she was named the
New Zealand Poet Laureate
The New Zealand poet laureate is a poet appointed by the National Library of New Zealand to represent New Zealand's community of poets, to promote and advocate for poetry, and to produce a number of published works during their three-year tenure ...
.
, writing for ''The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature'', describes her strength as being "the short poem, usually but not always unrhymed, witty, stylish and intellectually curious". He also notes that her poetry tends to feature figures from literature and legends, as well as
Catholicism
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
.
Awards
*1987 Scholarship in Letters
*1989
Lilian Ida Smith Award (non-fiction)
*1990
New Zealand Book Award for Poetry
The Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry is an award at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, presented annually to the winner of the poetry category. The winner receives a 10,000 prize.
History
The New Zealand Book Awards were set up by the New Z ...
*1992 Scholarship in Letters
*2000
Montana New Zealand Book Award for Poetry
*2002
Te Mata Poet Laureate
*2008
Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement
A prime number (or a prime) is a natural number greater than 1 that is not a product of two smaller natural numbers. A natural number greater than 1 that is not prime is called a composite number. For example, 5 is prime because the only ways ...
in poetry
*2012
Landfall Essay Competition
*2014
NZSA Janet Frame Memorial Award
*2016
Sarah Broom Poetry Prize
*2018
Ockhams New Zealand Book Award for Poetry
Bibliography
Poetry
Collections
*
* ''You’re Very Seductive William Carlos Williams'' (1978)
* ''The Sarah Train'' (1980)
* ''The Legend of Marcello Mastroianni's wife'' (1981)
* ''Casanova's Ankle'' (1981)
* ''Shakespeare Virgins'' (1983)
* ''Professor Musgrove's Canary'' (1986)
* ''Gorilla/ Guerilla'' (1986)
* ''Animaux'' (1988)
* ''A Pattern of Marching'' (1989)
* ''A Cortège of Daughters'' (1993)
* ''The Tudor Style: Poems New and Selected'' (1993)
*
*
* ''Horse Playing the Accordion'' (Ahadada Books, Tokyo & Toronto, 2009)
*''The Love of One Orange''
*
*
Anthologies
*
*
List of poems
Novels
* First Blood (1983)
* Brother-love Sister-love (1986)
* The Sea Between Us (2003) ''2004 Finalist for the Montana New Zealand Book Awards''
Short stories
* Nights at the Embassy (1990)
* Mr Fish (1994)
References
External links
"Elizabeth Smither", ''New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre''Interview at Academy of New Zealand Literature
{{DEFAULTSORT:Smither, Elizabeth
1941 births
Living people
Meanjin people
Members of the New Zealand Order of Merit
New Zealand women poets
New Zealand poets laureate