Peter Bland

Peter Bland (born 12 May 1934 in Scarborough, North Yorkshire) ^[1] is a British-New Zealand poet and actor.

Life

He emigrated to New Zealand at the age of 20 and graduated from the Victoria University of Wellington.

He worked as a radio producer for the New Zealand Broadcasting Corporation.

He became closely associated with the Wellington Group which included James K. Baxter and Louis Johnson. He worked in theatre, as co-founder and artistic director of Downstage Theatre from 1964–68.^[2]

He returned to Britain in 1970.^[3]

Awards and honours

• 1977 Cholmondeley Award
• Arvon Foundation International Poetry Competition, England
• 2011 Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement^[4]

Works

Poetry

• Title 3 poets: I. Habitual fevers, by Peter Bland. II. The watchers, by John Boyd. III. The sensual anchor, by Victor O'Leary. Capricorn Press. 1958.
• My Side of the Story: Poems 1960–1964. Mate Books. 1964.
• Domestic Interiors. Wai-te-ata Press. 1964.
• The Man With the Carpet-Bag. Caxton Press. 1972.
• Mr. Maui. London Magazine Editions. 1976.
• Primitives. Wai-te-ata Press. 1979.
• Stone Tents. London Magazine Editions. 1981. ISBN 978-0-904388-40-4.
• The Crusoe Factor. London Magazine Editions. 1985.
• Selected Poems. McIndoe. 1987.
• Paper Boats. J. McIndoe. 1991. ISBN 978-0-86868-130-6.
• Selected Poems. Carcanet. 1998. ISBN 978-1-85754-357-5.
• Let's Meet: poems 1985-2003. Steele Roberts. 2003. ISBN 978-1-877338-07-6.
• Ports of Call. Steele Roberts. 2003. ISBN 978-1-877338-04-5.
• The Night Kite: Poems for Children. Illustrator Carl Bland. Mallinson Rendel. 2004. ISBN 978-0-908783-83-0.
• Mr Maui's Monologues. Steele Roberts. 2008. ISBN 978-1-877448-27-0.
• Loss. Steele Roberts. 2010. ISBN 978-1-877448-97-3.
• Starkey the Gentle Pirate. Illustrator Nikki Slade Robinson. Steele Roberts. 2010. ISBN 978-1-877-577-03-1.
• Coming Ashore. Steele Roberts. 2011. ISBN 978-1-877577-49-9.
• Collected Poems: 1956–2011. Steele Roberts. 2013. ISBN 978-1-877577-99-4.
• Breath Dances. Steele Roberts. 2013. ISBN 978-1-927242-11-7.
• Hunting Elephants. Steele Roberts. 2014. ISBN 978-1-927242-53-7.

Plays

• Father’s Day (Wellington, 1966; the first locally-written production at Downstage Theatre)
• George the Mad Ad Man (Wellington, 1967, and Coventry, England, 1969).

Film Acting

• A Touch of the Other (1970)
• Don't Just Lie There, Say Something! (1973)
• Dangerous Orphans (1985)
• Came a Hot Friday (1985)
• Queen City Rocker (1986)

Memoir

• Sorry, Im a Stranger Here Myself. Vintage. 2004. ISBN 978-1-86941-632-4.

Reviews

Rereading some of these poems after thirty years re-vealed that they have been bivouacking in the backblocks of memory, ready to return at the slightest prompting. One, "The Happy Army," created a memorable stir when published in the NZ Listener. Critics hostile to modernist twentieth-century poetic developments lambasted it as mere prose transfigured into verse-an odd objection, since Bland writes quite traditional poetry. Indeed, the very essence of Bland's poetry is the way a contemporary voice and a modern concern with the itinerant mind never at home even in its own past are communicated in poetry which has regard for stanza, rhyme in the form of assonance and alliteration, and rhythm which never quite becomes metrical.^[5]

References

1. Lambert, Max (1991). Who’s Who in New Zealand (12th ed.). Reed, Auckland. p. 61. ISBN 0 7900 01306.
2. Ousby, Ian (1993). "The Cambridge guide to literature in English". ISBN 978-0-521-44086-8.
3. http://www.carcanet.co.uk/cgi-bin/indexer?owner_id=60
4. "Previous winners". Creative New Zealand. Retrieved 24 October 2013.
5. Bernard Gadd (Spring 1999). "Peter Bland: Selected Poems". World Literature Today.

External links

• "Bland, Peter", New Zealand Book Council
• "Bland, Peter", doollee