James K. Baxter

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James Keir Baxter (born June 29, 1926 in Dunedin , † October 22, 1972 in Auckland ) was a New Zealand writer who wrote numerous volumes of poetry and became one of the most important modern poets in New Zealand through his mastery of verse and striking imagery. Due to his own alcoholism , he became involved with drug addicts. In the late 1960s, he tried to build a commune on the Whanganui River in Jerusalem that wanted to preserve the original Māori values ​​that had been lost to the dominant urban pākehā society in the country.

Life

Family origin and primary education

Excerpt from the poem Māori Jesus on a concrete block

Baxter was the second son of the farmer, writer and pacifist Archibald McColl Learmond Baxter (1881-1970) and his wife, the Millicent Amiel Baxter Brown (1888-1984) also active as a pacifist . His second first name Keir referred to the British politician of the Labor Party , Keir Hardie , thus emphasizing the connection of his parents to the political left . The different origins of his parents also influenced his development. While his father was self-taught and a descendant of smallholders in the Highlands of Scotland , his mother was the eldest daughter of the recognized Canterbury College professor , John Macmillan Brown , who was an early advocate of women's education. His father had in World War I to refuse military service , his mother whereas linguistics at Newnham College of the University of Cambridge and at the University of Halle had studied. To her father's annoyance, she married Archibald Baxter.

Baxter spent the first five years of his life on his parents' farm in Kuri Bush, south of the Otago coastal village of Brighton . In 1931 the family moved to Brighton, where he attended the local elementary school. On the very first day of his school visit, he burned his hand on a stove, an accident that became a symbol of his constant aversion to systematic education.

Poetic beginnings, attending secondary school and traveling to England

Through his father, whom he later recognized as “a poet whom the time betrayed / To action”, he learned the knowledge and practice of poetry and wrote at the age of seven Years his first poem. His early verses were influenced by Scottish traditions and English fairy tales and poetry, to which the immediacy of the New Zealand landscape and life was added. At a young age, however, he noticed a difference between the ruling social order of New Zealand, represented by his maternal grandfather , and the “closely-knit Otago Tribes of my father's family”. Through his Scottish Gaelic ancestors, he developed an idea of ​​a tribal ethos “of charity, peace, and a survival that is more than self-preservation” and identified this same concept "how it burned like radium in the cells of my body". This sense of difference gave him the impetus for his writing.

In 1936 the family moved to Wanganui , where James and his four year older brother Terrence attended Quaker St John's Hill School . In 1937 the family went on a trip to England , where he and Terrence went to another Quaker school in Sibford in the Cotswolds , which the later Australian writer Elizabeth Jolley attended in those years . At the end of 1938 the family returned to New Zealand and settled again in Brighton. He began to attend Quaker St John's Hill School again from 1939 , this time as a boarding school student, this time feeling that he “had no relationship with his childhood comrades and was unsure whether he was English or New Zealander” ('out of touch with my childhood companions and uncertain whether I was an Englishman or a New Zealander '). He expressed this uncertainty in his poems, which he wrote at a rate of four to five per week during this time.

Time of the Second World War, studies and first poetic successes

After Baxter returned to Brighton in 1940, he transferred to King's High School in Dunedin as a student . The nascent World War II was a difficult time as his pacifist parents were suspected of espionage , he was bullied by his classmates , and his older brother was arrested for conscientious objection. His teenage years thus became a lonely time for him, although he felt that his experiences “created a gap in which the poems were able to grow” ('created a gap in which the poems were able to grow') . Between 1942 and 1946 he wrote around 600 poems.

In 1944 he began studying at the University of Otago and described the subsequent period as a "long, unsuccessful love affair with the higher learning" and that his "incipient alcoholism had wings like ein Bushfeuer ”('incipient alcoholism took wings like a bush fire'). In fact, he was much more devoted to poetry and was inspired by contemporary poets such as WH Auden , Stephen Spender , Louis MacNeice and Cecil Day-Lewis .

He was awarded the Macmillan Brown Prize for his poem Convoys , and his first volume of poetry, Beyond the palisade , published by Caxton Press , was recognized by literary criticism , whereas the second collection of poems, Cold Spring, was not published until 1996.

Post-war years, alcoholism and marriage to Jacqueline Sturm

After the war ended, Baxter worked in factories and farms between 1945 and 1947 and described this period in his posthumously published novel Horse (1985). His struggle with his alcohol addiction earned him a reputation as a kind of “wild man” and his drinking fits may have played a role in the breakdown of his first love affair with a young medical student. In 1947 he met Jacqueline Cecilia Sturm , who was one of the few members of the Māori who took a place at university.

At the end of 1947 he returned to Christchurch, on the one hand to resume his studies at the University of Canterbury , and on the other hand to visit an analytical psychologist inspired by Carl Gustav Jung . As a result of these conversations, he began to incorporate Jung's symbolism into his poetic theory and practice. He only attended lectures sporadically and worked odd jobs such as a housekeeper in a sanatorium, as a manuscript holder at the Christchurch Press publishing house and as a worker in a cold store.

At this time he began to associate with poets such as Allen Curnow and Denis Glover and with reading the works of Arthur Rimbaud , Dylan Thomas and Hart Crane . The publication of the volume of poetry Blow, wind of fruitfulness in 1948 confirmed his reputation as an outstanding poet of his generation. Since the late 1940s, his interest in religion grew, which led to his acceptance into the Anglican community through baptism in November 1948 .

A month later, Baxter married on December 9, 1948 in the Cathedral Church of St John the Evangelist in Napier, against the opposition of her parents Jacqueline Sturm. After the marriage, the couple moved to Wellington , where he worked in the Ngauranga slaughterhouse.

Continuation of studies and teachers

A year later the daughter Hilary Baxter was born in 1949 and both continued their studies, he in a course to obtain a Bachelor of Arts , while she took up a postgraduate course to acquire a Master of Arts in philosophy . He also expanded his circle of literary friends and belonged to a group of authors that included WH Oliver , Alistair Campbell and Louis Johnson .

In February 1951, Baxter finally began studying at Wellington Teachers 'College, and a few months later in May 1951 at a writers' conference in Christchurch, he gave a lecture on current trends in New Zealand poetry, which was published shortly afterwards . His comments inspired one critic to describe him as "the profoundest critic we have". In 1952 his son John Baxter was born. In addition, a selection of some of his poems appeared in the anthology Poems Unpleasant .

After graduating from Teachers' College in December 1952, Baxter spent 1953 studying full-time at Victoria University College and also published his third collection of poetry, The Fallen House . In 1954 he accepted a position as an assistant teacher at the Epuni School in Lower Hutt and wrote a series of children's poems as a reminder of his teaching there, which appeared posthumously in 1974 under the title The Tree House . In addition, he gave three lectures on poetry at Victoria University College in 1954, which were published in a 1955 collection of literary reviews entitled The Fire and the Anvil . Some critics viewed this as a simplification of problems and reliance on anecdotes.

For 1954 by Brian Brake staged Short Snows of Aorangi he wrote together with it the screenplay .

Joined Alcoholics Anonymous and first international success

In late 1954, Baxter had joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) to combat his alcoholism through rehabilitation and attending counseling courses and correctional facilities. The fight against his alcohol addiction was also financially tough for his family before he inherited a house in 1955 in which he could live with his family. After earning a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in the spring of 1956, he gave up teaching at the Epuni School and became the author and editor of school notices for the Department of School Publications at the Department of Education.

Baxter found international recognition in 1958 when Oxford University Press (OUP) published his volume of poems In Fires of no Return . Critics, however, described the work as loosely and weakly selected. On the other hand, he had his greatest success in 1958 with the radio play Jack Winter's Dream , which was also adapted for a stage version in 1960 and filmed in 1979 .

Temporary separation from his wife and study visits to Japan and India

However, his private life was less successful. After he converted to the Roman Catholic Church , to the amazement of his wife , the couple temporarily separated in October 1957. In January 1958 he was officially baptized.

With a grant from UNESCO , he began a six-month study visit to Japan in September 1958 and then to India , where his family later followed him. He was overwhelmed by the poverty there and struck by the experience of being part of an ethnic minority .

After returning to New Zealand in May 1959, he developed dysentery . He viewed the local society critically and seemed disaffected in his works by the dehumanizing aspects. The drama became an outlet for this criticism. The Wide Open Cage (1959) and other subsequent dramas explored topics such as guilt and alienation in relationships.

In 1960 he was involved in a controversy over Allen Curnow's anthology The Penguon Book of New Zealand Verse . His argument that Curnow distorted the state of New Zealand poetry by underrepresenting younger poets led to an antipathy between his former favorite Curnow and him. The feeling of displacement and disorientation he gained during his stay in India was also essential for his next collection of poems, Howrah Bridge and other Poems , which appeared in 1961.

Postman and Robert Burns Fellowship

In March 1963, Baxter gave up his position in the school publications division of the Department of Education and took up a job as a postman instead. In the following years he wrote some polemical protest poems against the Vietnam War , during the Poetry Magazine 1964 A Selection of Poetry . His next significant collection of poems, however, appeared in 1966 under the title Pig Island Letters . The critically acclaimed work showed a directness and clarity in its language that was not often found in his work of the 1950s.

In 1966, Baxter and his family left Wellington and moved to Dunedin so that he could take up the Robert Burns Fellowship for creative writing at the University of Otago between 1966 and 1968 . During his time there, he continued his protest against the Vietnam War and enjoyed the satirical work on university restrictions on students who were also demonstrating in his pamphlet A Small Ode on Mixed Flatting . In addition, he published numerous poems and in 1967 published the Lion Skin, another anthology. In addition, two books with literary critical work were published under the titles Aspects of poetry in New Zealand and The Man on the Horse . Furthermore, a number of his plays were performed by the director Patric Carey .

After the Robert Burns Fellowship ended, the Dunedin Catholic Education Bureau employed Baxter in 1968 to prepare catechetical material and to teach in Catholic schools. His contributions to the Catholic magazine New Zealand Tablet appeared in 1969 in the anthology The Flowering Cross . On the other hand, it became evident that the fellowship had drained his strength. Marital problems and relationships with his children reappeared, combined with a feeling of being trapped in domesticity. He also bit into the feeling that mere words were impotent without action.

Commitment to drug addicts in Grafton

At the beginning of April 1968, "a minor revelation" made him think of the Hiruharama mission station on the Whanganui River in Jerusalem and intended to go to this small Māori settlement, which is surrounded by a Catholic church and a convent was. There he wanted to “found the core of a community in which people, both Māori and Pākehā , could try to live without money or books, to worship God and to work in the countryside” ('form the nucleus of a community where the people , both Maori and pakeha, would try to live without money or books, worship God and work on the land '). After the family returned to Wellington in December 1968, he left the family home to put his faith into practice.

Although his final destination was Jerusalem, he made a stopover in Grafton , a suburb of Auckland. There he founded a counseling center for drug addicts at Easter 1969. It was around this time that he also adopted the Māori version of his name, Hemi, and began counseling and planning for the creation of an organization for anonymous drug addicts. His appearance at the time, barefoot, bearded and shabbily clad, attracted the attention of both the media and the police, who found his motives and morality suspect. He described the side of the drug addict in the story Ballad of the junkies and the fuzz .

Failed community formation in Jerusalem, late literary work and death

In 1969, Baxter published The Rock Woman, a collection of poems from the past 20 years, although his main focus was no longer on poetry. In 1969 he worked briefly as a cleaner at the Chelsea Sugar Refinery : the poet Hone Tuwhare had got him this job . After three weeks he was released and wrote his satirical poem "Ballad of the Stonegut Sugar Works" on it, which expressed his dissatisfaction with the working conditions. However, Baxter's impression of the factory was not shared by all workers. Despite the hard work, there was a sense of community and the company gave workers numerous perks, including home-building loans and job security. This resulted in a low fluctuation. Often entire generations of a family worked in the refinery.

In August 1969 he finally went to Jerusalem, where he arrived in September. There he tried to found a community that took up the spiritual aspects of Māori community life in order to preserve values ​​that the prevailing urban Pākehā society had lost. In practice, however, the municipality was lacking in order as it was unable to regulate the number of residents or their behavior. The press presented his activities as a sensation, while the locals felt increasingly uncomfortable. The problems there were compounded by his frequent absences for visiting his dying father in Dunedin and conducting lecture tours. In February 1971 he protested with young radical Māori on the occasion of the celebrations for Waitangi Day , which has been considered the birth of modern New Zealand since 1840 after the signing of the Waitangi Treaty . The first phase of the commune ended in September 1971 when he returned to Wellington. Later he wanted to return to Jerusalem. However, this was forbidden to him and a smaller, cohesive group by the landowners in February 1972.

Baxter's last collections of poetry, Jerusalem Sonnet (1970) and Autumn Testament (1972), were more pleasing again. The language of the poems was colloquial, their structure less formal than before and their tone entertaining. Both the poems and prose in Jerusalem Daybook (1971) mixed the little things of daily communal life with a highly personal form of religious meditation .

By August 1972, Baxter was physically and emotionally dehydrated. Unable to lead the commune in Jerusalem any longer, he sought refuge in a small commune in Auckland. On the evening of October 22, 1972, he died there of an arterial thrombosis at the age of 46 . His body was brought back to Jerusalem by his family, where hundreds of people held a tangihanga , the ceremonial funeral of the Māori. After a requiem, he was finally buried on tribal land on October 25, 1972. A year after his death, a boulder with the inscription Hemi / James Keir Baxter / i whanau 1926 / i mate 1972 was placed on his grave. The Baxter Glacier in Antarctica is named in his honor.

Posthumous publications and literary impact

After his death, he published two books with religious writings and several collections of poetry that contained previously unpublished poems. Furthermore, his Collected Poems in 1980 and Collected Plays in 1983 appeared.

Baxter's ratings and assessments of New Zealand society seemed harsh to his, but always came from the perspective of someone who was very familiar with social processes. His criticism of national life and his ultimate decision to step out of the mainstream seemed to evolve naturally from his previous lifelong preoccupation with poetry. However, this occupation was usually neither negative nor desperate. Rather, it was the mythological sentiment that underlined his poems in his quest to place the individual or nation in a broader framework by directing attention towards the universal elements of human experience. On the other hand, Baxter, who found unacceptable depersonalization , centralization, and profanation of urban society, could always find hope in people's hearts.

In 2005 he was voted number 38 on New Zealand's Top 100 History Makers list.

Publications

Publications during his lifetime

  • Beyond the palisade , 1944
  • The fall house , 1953
  • In fires of no return , 1958
  • Howrah Bridge , 1961
  • Pig Island letters , 1966
  • A death song for Mr. Mouldybroke , 1967
  • The lion skin , 1967
  • The man on the horse , 1967
  • The Globe Theater , 1968
  • A small ode on mixed flatting , 1968
  • The rock woman , 1969
  • Jerusalem sunnets , 1970
  • Jerusalem blues 2 , 1971
  • The sore-footed man , 1971
  • A walking stick for an old man , 1972
  • Four God songs , 1972
  • Letter to Peter Olds , 1972
  • Six faces of love , 1972

Posthumous publications

  • Autumn testament , 1973
  • Runes , 1973
  • Thoughts about the Holy Spirit from a reading of the prison letters of Paul , 1973
  • Two obscene poems , 1973
  • The labyrinth , 1974
  • The bone chanter , 1976
  • The holy life and death of Concrete Grady , 1976
  • Collected Poems , 1979
  • Jack Winter's dream , 1979
  • Collected play , 1982
  • The essential Baxte , 1993
  • Selected poems of James K. Baxter , 2010

Background literature

  • J E. Weir: The poetry of James K. Baxter , 1970
  • Vincent O'Sullivan: James K. Baxte , 1977, ISBN 0-19558-010-9
  • Chambers Dictionary of World History , pp. 123, 2002, ISBN 0-550-13000-4

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Peter Luke: Sugar Workers, Sugar Town: An Oral History of Chelsea Sugar Refinery, 1884-1984 , 1984, ISBN = 0-473-00270-1, pp. 3, 7
personal data
SURNAME Baxter, James K.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Baxter, James Keir (full name); Hemi (Māori name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand poet
DATE OF BIRTH June 29, 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Dunedin
DATE OF DEATH October 22, 1972
Place of death Auckland