“Chew and depth” in New Zealand Poetry anthology

A brand new issue of the online anthology Best New Zealand Poems has gone live, containing the best 25 poems from 2010.

The anthology includes work from well known writers like Fleur Adcock, Elizabeth Smither, Ian Wedde, Jenny Bornholdt, James Brown, Gregory O'Brien and Poet Laureate Cilla McQueen as well as some of the rising stars of New Zealand literature.

This year’s Best New Zealand Poems is edited by Victoria University Senior Lecturer Chris Price—a former editor of Landfall and herself a well-known poet. She says she is particularly pleased to have included “two comets long lost from the local poetry firmament”—David Mitchell, who has published almost nothing since his near-legendary Pipe Dreams in Ponsonby in 1972, and John Newton, author of the much admired book about Baxter’s Jerusalem, The Double Rainbow.

She notes in her introduction that she was looking for—and found—“poems with enough chew and depth to make them worth repeated tasting.”

Series editor Professor Bill Manhire says that it’s exciting to see such a strong selection at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. “It’s one of New Zealand’s best kept secrets, just how good we are at poetry – Best New Zealand Poems is one way of telling the world what we all know locally.”

Professor Manhire and his colleague Damien Wilkins have been making a “best of the best” selection from the first ten years of Best New Zealand Poems. It will be published by Victoria University Press, and launched in May at the Auckland Writers’ Festival.

Professor Manhire says that sound files will soon to be added to back issues of Best New Zealand Poems. “We already have authors’ notes and lots of useful links. But everyone tells us that poems make most sense when their authors read them aloud. Now you’ll be able to see the poems on screen and hear the poets read them at the same time.”

New additions to the collection.

It has been a while since we updated our front page so we thought we would highlight some new works in the collection. We have a backlog of historical New Zealand and Pacific works that we are working our way through so keep an eye out for more to come. There are two noteworthy additions that maybe of interest.

The Founders of Canterbury provides the intriguing correspondence between Edward Gibbon Wakefield and John Robert Godley and other key figures of the settlement of Canterbury between 1847 and 1850. This addition to the NZETC Collection is timely considering the recent devastating earthquakes which have struck Canterbury and the slow process of grieving and rebuilding. Our thoughts go out to all Cantabrians during these hard times.

Voices of Auckland, is an attempt to redress the unfavourable view of Auckland province that was being circulated in the United Kingdom during the mid 1800s. It includes information about the greater Auckland area from the Bay of Islands to the Bay of Plenty. It also provides a variety of advice to potential emigrants. The following example of advice is from Rev. Richard Taylor:
"To single men, intending to emigrate, I would say, marry before you go out; a good wife is a great treasure and stay to a young man. Many have been ruined, because they have not had a bosom friend to sustain them in times of trial, besides the social comfort thus derived; for none can tell how dreary a young settler's home is without a wife, and how many temptations she saves him from. Therefore, to every single man I again say, marry, for wives are not to be had abroad; property is of little consideration, compared with that of a partner."

• Sir George Grey Pioneer of Empire in Southern Lands by Geo. C. Henderson
• Government in New Zealand by Leicester Chisholm Webb
• A Dark Chapter from New Zealand History by James Hawthorne
• Voices from Auckland, New Zealand by Alex. F. Ridgway
• The Founders of Canterbury by Edward Jerningham Wakefield
• Notes on Sir William Martin's Pamphlet Entitled the Taranaki Question by Francis Dillon Bell, Thomas Gore Browne and Frederick Whitaker
  
• The Fijians: A Study of the Decay of Custom by Basil Thomson
• Fiji and the Fijians 1835-1856 by G. C. Henderson
  

Turbine 2010 is online now.

The 2010 issue of literary journal Turbine is now online, featuring new writing from emerging and established writers, with motherhood, earthquakes, and snow emerging as themes in this year's quietly apocalyptic selection.

Turbine is published once a year by Victoria University's International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML).

Sixteen of this year's IIML Masters students have work on display, including this year's Adam Foundation Prize winner, Rayne Cockburn, with an excerpt from her reading journal offering an insight into how reading great literature feeds the creative process.

Also in this issue are two new poems by, and an interview with, 2010 Victoria University Writer in Residence Jenny Bornholdt, former Poet Laureate, who talks about the poetic quality of children's writing, and what is meant by the term 'school of poetry'.

Audio recordings by six poets, including Jenny Bornholdt, 2009 Biggs Prize winner Bill Nelson, and Victoria University Lecturer Anna Jackson, offer the chance to hear poetry come to life.

Two new storm-buffeted but enchanting poems appear from Bernadette Hall, who will be taking up a teaching fellowship at the IIML next year to stand in for senior lecturer Chris Price, who will be spending much of the year in Menton, France as recipient of the 2011 Mansfield Prize.

"The 2010 edition of Turbine is full of award-winning writers, with a startling piece of fiction set in a disquieting theme park from two-time Macmillan Brown Prize winner Cate Palmer, and poetry by no fewer than three previous Adam Prize recipients Cliff Fell, Lynn Jenner, and Ashleigh Young," says Chris Price.

"The issue traverses the high brow and the low. Cliff Fell's work alone ranges from classical Latin love poetry to an examination of Kiwi profanity."

The NZETC works with the IIML to publish Turbine and hosts the journal on our server. If you wish to see the other editions of Turbine you can do so here: Turbine index page.

Scholarly editions of 19th Century Novels

The NZETC is proud to highlight the work of ENGL489 students from Victoria University of Wellington who have been working with works in our 19th Century novels collection over the past two years. The students have researched a novel of their choice and created a scholarly edition complete with editorial glossing through footnotes, bibliographies and relevant contemporary resources. These editions contribute to the understanding of little known authors and works.

The editorial editions are as follows:

• Sara Berger's edition of The Bird of Paradise by William Henry Dutton
• Anne Brown's edition of A Strange Friendship: A Story of New Zealand by Charlotte Evans
• Anne Brown's edition of Over The Hills, and Far Away: A Story of New Zealand by Charlotte Evans
• Vicky Hughes' edition of Utu: A Story of Love, Hate and Revenge by Margaret Bullock
• David Weir's edition of The Angel Isafrel: A Story of Prohibition in New Zealand by George McCullagh Reed
  

Further information regarding the corpus of novels can be obtained here: Nineteenth Century Novels Corpus Page. We would like to thank Jane Stafford from the School of English, Film, Theatre and Media Studies for working to make the course a success.

Vacancy: Digital Projects Assistant

The Library Technology Services team at Victoria University is focused upon the delivery of digital content, tool and services to meet the needs of the Library and its community of users.

Applications are invited to for a permanent position within that team as Digital Projects Assistant. The role is to undertake the practical tasks required to both create new digital resources for the Library collections inlcluding the NZETC collection. It is a great chance to learn and gain experience across a range of digitisation and digital academic publishing projects.

Would suit someone with an enthusiasm for digital projects, an aptitude for technology and an eye for detail. Relevant experience in publishing, libraries or information technology would be useful but excellent communication skills and experience of working effectively in a team are equally important.

To view details of this position and to apply, please go to: http://vacancies.vuw.ac.nz/

Ref: G260-10

Closing date for applications – Monday 29th November 2010

Copyright Mistakes

Alert users will have noticed that we've been having some difficulties in the last little while. A staff error resulted in the serving of works to the public under an inappropriate copyright license. When the error was identified we immediately took down the webserver and reversed the mistake.

Most of the content that we serve is either cached (webpages) or pre-generated (ePub and DAISY ebooks, PDF page images) and the number of works effected means that the re-cacheing and re-pre-generation will take some time. Until then our webserver is likely to be slow and some links to ePubs will not work. Our TEI, DAISY and PDF files appear not to contain licensing information so continue to be available.

We believe that we now have correct licensing information for all works on our website. If you have any questions about the licensing of particular works or corpora, please get in touch with us at Library Technology Services.

We are currently getting in touch with known re-users of our content to alert them to the situation and work through the licensing issues.

Zoology Publications of VUW

We are very happy to announce the launch of the Zoology Publications from Victoria University of Wellington 1949-1985. The Zoology Publications contain works of national and to an extent international relevance and will benefit marine and terrestrial biologists working in New Zealand through extensive keys and species descriptions. Articles in the publication often describe the discovery of new genera and species. Interestingly many of the articles in the publication’s history research species local to the Cook Strait and Wellington region as well as the rest of New Zealand. The Zoology Publications represent an important part of the university’s scientific research outputs.

Zoology is a broad discipline, at present many courses in the Ecology & Biodiversity and Marine Biology programmes contain significant zoological content. We anticipate that having the Zoology Publications readily available will be very valuable for students studying in these disciplines and will promote past and future research within the University.

This digitisation project has enabled fully searchable copies of the entire collection of 80 works that were previously difficult to access. Each article is also available to be downloaded in PDF and ePub formats.