Meg Campbell

Campbell was born and raised in Palmerston North. She studied acting at Victoria University for a period and obtained a speech and drama qualification from Trinity College. They had three children together, and in the early 1960s moved to the Kāpiti Coast region. After her first child was born, Campbell suffered from a combination of postpartum depression and bipolar disorder, and had a nervous breakdown. In 1969 she began writing poetry at Porirua Psychiatric Hospital, wanting to regain her identity. The topic of her long-term experience with depression and mental institutions is expressed through a variety of her poetry. ==Work==

Campbell's first published poem was "Solitary Confinement" in 1978 in the New Zealand Listener. At this time she was beginning to recover from her depression. Her first collection of poetry The Way Back (1981) won the PEN Best First Book Award for poetry. ==Style and themes==

Campbell's poetry expresses her personal experiences and struggles, and often demonstrates wit and a sense of humor. In The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, Roger Robinson suggests that the role of mythology within her poetry speaks about gender roles and sexuality as well as domesticity; he states that Campbell's poetry "can form unexpected links, between the mythic and the domestic, for instance, as in 'Maui', or the universal and psychological, as in 'Things Random' or 'Evolution'." ''The Cambridge Guide to Women's Writing in English'' and Robinson both describe Campbell's voice as strong. Her work often features a sense of place in the Kāpiti Coast region, where she lived for most of her life. ==Bibliography==