J O U R N E Y   T O  P O R T U G A L
Poems by Michele Leggott
Images by Gretchen Albrecht

Michele Leggott writes : “In mid-2004 I went to Portugal for the V Meeting of Poets at Coimbra University, which is one of the oldest universities in Europe. I took a notebook already prepared with lines I liked from Fernando Pessoa, Portugal’s great Modernist poet. On the facing pages I began a conversation with Pessoa and the early northern summer we were travelling through..."

Gretchen Albrecht writes : "The technique employed in realising my images is a form of collage— Chine Collé , where thin Japanese hand-made art papers are torn into shapes then glued and pressed in a 'nipping' press to the page..." [more]

S E A R C H I N G S
M a x   G i m b l e t t
selections from the artist's Journals
chosen & arranged by Alan Loney

This book is the result of three years research and study of the Journals of one of the most significant artists to emerge from New Zealand. Max Gimblett, who has lived and worked in the United States for some forty years, has made his private Journals available for the eyes of others in a way that is unprecedented for him. It is therefore a significant act of generosity on his part to reveal many of his most intimate questions and concerns during his life in art since 1968 when the first of these Journals was opened. If much of the work here enunciates difficulties and problems, it is simply that the Journals have been the place where an otherwise joyful artist has expressed himself to himself, tho it must be said that what readers will find here are questions, sometimes deep and troubling ones, rather than doubts or outright despair .... [more]

E N G R A V I N G S   O N    W O O D
b y   L e o   B e n s e m a n n
with an introduction and notes by Peter Simpson
together with a portfolio of ten unbound engravings. 2004

This is the most lavish and ambitious publication The Holloway Press has yet attempted. It consists of 22 wood-engravings by Leo Bensemann (1912-1986), a New Zealand artist whose importance is becoming ever more widely recognised.The artist’s original blocks have been kindly loaned to the Holloway Press by the Bensemann family, and the engravings printed directly from them ... [more]

The text of a talk given by poet, curator and art writer Greg O'Brien at the launch of Bensemann, Engravings on Wood, at the Gus Fisher Gallery, University of Auckland, Sunday 15 August, 2004

A review from New Zealand Books...
A review from Art New Zealand...
A review from The Journal of New Zealand Art History...

F O U R  S H O R T  S T O R I E S  1 9 3 1 - 3 5
R . A . K .  M a s o n
with an afterword by Rachel Barrowman. 2003

This book contains the only four short stories published by R.A.K. Mason (1905-71), one of New Zealand's most important poets. They appeared in the literary journals Kiwi, Phoenix and Tomorrow between 1931 and 1935 and show the influence of Freud and James Joyce. The book also contains facsimiles of poems by Mason as printed by Robert Lowry, and wood engravings and linocuts by L.D. Morrison and S.F. Champ ... [more]

 A review from New Zealand Books...

L A S T   P O E M S
b y   K E N D R I C K   S M I T H Y M A N

Kendrick Smithyman (1922-95) was one of New Zealand’s best and most prolific poets. During his 50 year career he published a dozen collections of verse... Last Poems includes 36 poems written between 1992 and 1995. In them Smithyman ranges over many of his familiar concerns—the landscape and history of Northland, incidents drawn from childhood and wartime memories, poems based on his wide reading in literature, history, philosophy and other fields, witty anecdotes about people and places ... [more]

A   V O I C E   F O R   T H E   M I N O T A U R
S e l e c t e d   P o e m s   b y   M A U R I C E   D U G G A N

Maurice Duggan (1922-74) was one of New Zealand finest short story writers... Duggan occasionally published poems in Mate, the NZ Listener, and Islands but a collection, though planned under the present title, was not published in his lifetime. This selection consists of poems written during the last 20 years of his life and has been edited by Duggan’s biographer Ian Richards ... [more]

A   S H I P B O A R D   D I A R Y
b y   A N N I E   a n d   H A R O L D   B E A U C H A M P

Edited with an Introduction by Ian A. Gordon. 1997

On 19 March 1898 Katherine Mansfield's parents sailed from Wellington to London via Buenos Aires on a business trip. Harold Beauchamp booked the best available 1st Saloon cabin on the steamship S.S. Ruahine, and he and Annie found their living quarters for the six-week voyager not only luxurious but, in Annie's sometimes individual spelling, "comfe"... [more]

T H E  L O V E  S O N G S  O F   I B Y K O S :  2 2  F R A G M E N T S
t r a n s l a t e d   w i t h   a n   i n t r o d u c t i o n   b y  
T E D   J E N N E R

A bilingual edition. Illustrations by John Reynolds. 1997

"Born at Rhegion (now Reggio di Calabria in Southern Italy) early in the sixth century B.C., left the Greek West for the island of Samos in the Aegean sea, died at Rhegion -- or was perhaps robbed and murdered near Corinth: that is about as much as we can derive from ancient sources about the life of the lyric poet Ibyknos." ... [more]

L E D A ' S   D A U G H T E R
b y   H E L E N   S H A W

with a Foreword by Riemke Ensing
and decorations by Vanya Lowry.   1996

Included in the materials passed on from The Griffin Press was standing type for two books by Helen Shaw, Leda's Daughter and On a Dark Mirror. Leda's Daughter is among Shaw's last writings, and was published in 50 copies in the year of her death, 1985. The poem sequence reflects on the legendary origins of the poet's name... [more]

O N   A   D A R K   M I R R O R :   F O U R   R O M A N C E  
P O E M S
b y   HE L E N   S H A W

with two tailpieces by Vanya Lowry.  1996

Published in an updated edition of 50 copies by The Griffin Press, this book is redesigned, printed and bound by Alan Loney. It is a 16-page pamphlet, handsewn with soft wrappers, printed in two colours throughout... [more]

T H E   V I C T O R Y   H Y M N   1 9 3 5 - 1 9 9 5
b y   R O B I N   H Y D E
w i t h   a n   e s s a y   b y   M i c h e l e   L e g g o t t .  1 9 9 5
 

Among the materials transferred from th Griffin Press to the University was a gallery of Linotype consisting of the text of a poem by Robin Hyde set in 1935 for a pamphlet that was never issued. A search by Dr Michele Leggott of the English Department at the University of Auckland among the Hyde papers in the variouscollections found ten different versions of the poem, of which just seven were 'authorised', that is, were in Hyde's own manuscript or typescript... [more]