Terry Locke: Difference between revisions

Terry James Locke (born 1946) Ph.D (1976) (Auck) is a New Zealand poet, anthologist, poetry reviewer and academic.

Background

Terry Locke was born in Auckland and grew up in the suburb of Sandringam, the youngest of three children. He attended St Peter's College where he was in the same class as Sam Hunt and was taught "for two important senior years" by K O Arvidson. He was dux of the college in 1964 and in 1965 was awarded a Junior National University Scholarship. In 1965 Locke attended Holy Name Seminary in Christchurch and then commenced a degree in English and Mathematics at Auckland University, eventually completing a Ph.D. in English. His doctoral thesis was on the subject,The Antagonistic City: A Design for Urban Imagery in Seven American Poets. During that time he was also a social activist and was involved in the foundation of Youthline with Father Felix Donnelly . He was the Director of Youthline and was involved in other social and Catholic initiatives.. He later wrote a history of Youthline. Locke has lived in a Victorian-style villa in Kingsland, New Zealand, since 1979 with his wife, Linda. They have raised six children, including three from his previous marriage to Judith McNeil. Locke was a practising folk musician. McNeil and their son, Barry Locke (also known as Baz St John), are current practising musicians and singers..

Academic

While completing his Ph.D. and afterwards, Locke lectured from time to time in the English Department at Auckland University over a period of nine years years (1970-1976 and 1980-1983). He was editor of Rapport for four years. In 1971-2 he was a visiting Research Fellow at Yale University while working on his Ph.D thesis. He also taught at secondary school level for twelve years. Since the beginning of 1997, he has worked in the Arts and Language Education Department of the School of Education at Waikato University, where he trains secondary English teachers and pursues academic interests in such areas as "professionalism, ‘new technologies’, the construction of English and educational reform". Locke is also a notable poetry reviewer. Locke is a Professor in English/Language Education in the Arts and Language Education Department at Waikato University.

Poetry

As a student at Auckland University Locke associated with other young poets such as Ian Wedde, Bob Orr, Murray Edmond and Russell Haley. He has stated that his poetic influences include William Wordsworth, T S Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov and William Stafford. Emily Dickinson is his favourite poet but he has stated that she has not influenced his poetry. His early poems were published in Landfall, Morepork and Tango and some of those were republished in his first book of poems, After a Life in the Provinces, published in 1983. His home in the old villa in Kingsland, provides the setting for his second book of poems, Home Territory (Lindon, 1984). Locke's most recent book of poems Maketu (concerning Phillip Tapsell) was published in 2003. Locke has also edited or co-edited three anthologies of New Zealand poetry

After a Life in the Provinces

The poems in Locke's first book of poems are dominated by personal and family concerns (for example, in Child of Mine, Poem for Barry at the Age of Two and Surrogate Lover) His Catholic background informs Church Universal which is an off-beat, Manichean, humdrum description of the Mass interspersing equally downbeat scenes from a brothel. Many of the poems have specific New Zealand settings familiar to the poet such as (Near the Waiohini River Bridge It Happens and Mangaweka'. Reply to Baxter is an attack on some of the social views of James K Baxter.

Maketu

This is an extended sequence of poems concerning Phillip Tapsell (also known as “Philip”), a figure from early Nineteenth-century New Zealand history “at once romantic, tantalizingly inaccessible and significant” The poems are a record of the process of finding out about Tapsell (speaking with descendants and others, reading documents and their “academic interpretations” and writing letters) and a reconstruction of the life of Tapsell and Hineiturama, Chieftainess of Te Arawa, who became his partner in 1833. The poems refer particularly to the Boyd massacre of 1809. Tapsell was involved in the retribution against the Maori iwi concerned, Nga Puhi (hence the poems ‘’The Ballad of the good ship Boyd’’ and ‘’The Retribution’’), and a description and reflection in '’The Shadow’’ on Tapsell’s first marriages, to Maria Ringa, a Nga Puhi woman (married by Thomas Kendall) and the second marriage also, to a Nga Puhi woman, solemnised by Marsden, which also ended quickly, through her death. The later experience of Tapsell and Hineiturama is referred to in the poems ‘’The Revenger’s tragedy’’ and ‘’The artefact’’. The sequence is referenced to the moment and place (Maketu) where Locke first heard of Tapsell: “The day was fine. The Kaituna River eddied quietly seawards. The old diving board was still. Near the memorial was an old cannon, and attached to the cannon’s base was a plaque bearing the name, Philip Tapsell” (hence the poems, ‘’The diving board’’ and ‘’The cannon’’). The poems are rich with references as diverse as William Shakespeare, St Januarius, Copernicus[Pocahontas]]

Publications

Poetry

• After a Life in the Provinces: Poems 1975-1982, Auckland: Lindon 1983.
• Home Territory, Auckland: Lindon, 1984.
• Maketu, Wellington: HeadworX, 2003.
• White Feathers: An Anthology of New Zealand and Pacific Island Poetry on the Theme of Peace, Christchurch: Hazard Press, 1991 (with Peter Low and John Winslade).
• Doors: A Contemporary New Zealand Poetry Selection, Hamilton: Leaders Press, 2000.
• Jewels in the Water: Contemporary New Zealand Poetry for Younger Readers, Hamilton: Leaders Press, 2000.

General

• National Library of New Zealand catalogue search: holdings for Terry Locke (retrieved 21 February 2012)