Alistair Te Ariki Campbell

Campbell was born in Rarotonga, on 25 June 1925, and spent his early years on Penrhyn atoll or Tongareva. His mother, Teu Bosini, was Cook Island Māori, and his father, John Archibald (Jock) Campbell, was a Pākehā New Zealander of Scottish descent. His father was a former World War I soldier who worked on the island as a successful trader. In 1932, when Campbell was seven, his mother died from what may have been tuberculosis. The following year, his father also died after becoming an alcoholic. Campbell was sent with his younger brother, Bill, to live with their grandmother in Dunedin, in the South Island of New Zealand. She already had care of their two older siblings. She was however unable to cope with the four children given the Great Depression and sent the children to an orphanage in 1934, where Campbell spent the next six years. He attended Otago Boys' High School, where he did well academically and in sports, but experienced racism from other students due to his Cook Island heritage. He began writing poetry around this time. He studied first at the University of Otago and then attended Victoria University of Wellington off and on between 1944 and 1952, while working various menial jobs to support himself. The poem was set to music by his friend, composer Douglas Lilburn, in 1951. He became a part of the Wellington Group in the 1950s, a group of poets who saw themselves as having a different perspective to Allen Curnow, another notable New Zealand poet, and through this group became friends with James K. Baxter and others. In this time he was a founder and editor of two literary magazines, Hilltop and Arachne. ==Literary career==

Campbell's first poetry collection, Mine Eyes Dazzle, was published in 1950. In 1953 he graduated from Victoria with a Bachelor of Arts, and the following year he obtained a teaching diploma from Wellington Teachers' College. After obtaining his teaching diploma, Campbell taught for a short period at Newtown School in Wellington, and subsequently became the editor of the New Zealand School Journal from 1955 to 1972. In the same year he wrote a novel for children, The Happy Summer (1961). His third collection, Wild Honey, was published by Oxford University Press in 1964. In 1965 his poem "The Return" was set to music by Douglas Lilburn, and was Lilburn's first major electronic work. In 1976, a formative experience in Campbell's life occurred when he returned to Tongareva, together with his younger brother Bill, and rediscovered his Polynesian heritage and family. He said of the return: "Suddenly, we had a family again. As a long-lost son, I was wept over by old ladies, wailing 'Aue!' I also had the clear sensation my mother was there, waiting." From this trip onwards he used his full name, Alistair Te Ariki Campbell. The middle name "Te Ariki" was part of his birth name and meant that his family was of high rank. He had stopped using the name after his move to New Zealand. His Polynesian heritage, which he had begun exploring in the 1960s, from then on became central to his writing and poetry. His 1980 collection, The Dark Lord of Savaiki, focussed on his ancestors through his mother's side, in particular his grandfather, and his feelings as he came to terms with his heritage. He also tutored creative writing, and in the late 1970s, was the President of the New Zealand PEN Centre, the New Zealand branch of PEN International. In 1979 he toured New Zealand with Sam Hunt, Hone Tuwhare and Jan Kemp. ==Later life and legacy==

Campbell wrote about his father's and brother's experiences in wartime in his later life, with the collection Gallipoli and Other Poems (1999) and a poetic sequence called "Māori Battalion" in 2001. Reviewer Iain Sharp wrote that these later works "rank among his strongest work". On receiving the award, he said: "This finally justifies all those years that I struggled with my demons and chose the path I am still on. This is my wife Meg's recognition and makes all the sacrifices worthwhile." In 2016 his Collected Poems were published by Victoria University Press, with Robert Sullivan noting in the foreword that "Campbell's dual Polynesian and Pākehā heritage makes him a foreparent of bicultural and multicultural writing in Aotearoa". In April 2020 New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern recorded a reading of his poem "Gallipoli Peninsula" as part of Anzac Day commemorations for Westminster Abbey. ==Selected works==

Poetry • 1950: Mine Eyes Dazzle: Poems 1947–49, Christchurch: Pegasus Press • 1951: Mine Eyes Dazzle: Pegasus New Zealand Poets 1, Christchurch: Pegasus Press ("With a Foreword by James K. Baxter") • 1956: Mine Eyes Dazzle, Christchurch: Pegasus Press ("New Revised Edition") • 1963: Sanctuary of Spirits, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press • 1964: Wild Honey, London: Oxford University Press • 1967: Blue Rain: Poems, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press • 1972: Kapiti: Selected Poems 1947–71, Christchurch: Pegasus Press • 1975: Dreams, Yellow Lions, Martinborough: Alister Taylor • 1980: The Dark Lord of Savaiki: Poems, Pukerua Bay: Te Kotare Press • 1981: Collected Poems 1947–1981, Martinborough: Alister Taylor • 1985: Soul Traps, Pukerua Bay: Te Kotare Press • 1992: Stone Rain: The Polynesian Strain, Christchurch: Hazard Press • 1995: Death and the Tagua, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press • 1996: Pocket Collected Poems, Christchurch: Hazard Press • 1999: Gallipoli & Other Poems, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press • 2001: Maori Battalion: A Poetic Sequence, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press • 2002: Poets in Our Youth: Four Letters in Verse, being four letters in verse to John Mansfield Thomson, Harry Orsman, Pat Wilson and James K. Baxter; Wellington: Pemmican Press • 2005: The Dark Lord of Savaiki: Collected Poems, Christchurch: Hazard Press • 2007: Just Poetry, Wellington: HeadworX • 2008: ''It's Love, Isn't It?'' (with Meg Campbell), Wellington: HeadworX • 2016: The Collected Poems of Alistair Te Ariki Campbell, Wellington: Victoria University Press Other work • 1961: The Happy Summer, a novel for children • 1965: The Proprietor, a radio play • 1964: The Homecoming, a radio play • 1966: The Suicide, a radio play • 1970: When the Bough Breaks, a radio play • 1984: Island to Island, memoir • 1989: The Frigate Bird, a novel, regional finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize • 1991: Sidewinder, a novel, Auckland: Reed Books • 1993: Tia, a novel, Auckland: Reed Books • 1998: Fantasy With Witches, a novel ==Notes==