Thomas Allen Monro Curnow (17 June 1911 – 23 September 2001) was a New Zealand poet and journalist.

Life

Curnow was born in Timaru, New Zealand, the son of a fourth generation New Zealander, an Anglican clergyman, and he grew up in a religious family. The family was of Cornish origin.White, G. Pawley, A Handbook of Cornish Surnames.(Curnow is himself mentioned by Rowse) During his early childhood they often moved around Canterbury, living in Belfast, Malvern, Lyttelton and New Brighton. He was educated at Christchurch Boys' High School, Canterbury University, and obtained a PhD from Auckland University in 1964.

After completing his education, Curnow worked from 1929 to 1930 at the Christchurch Sun, before moving once again to Auckland to prepare for the Anglican ministry at St John's Theological College (1931–1933). In this period Curnow also published his first poems in University periodicals, such as Kiwi and Phoenix.

In 1934 Curnow returned to the South Island, where he started a correspondence with Iris Wilkinson and Alan Mulgan, as well as finding a job at The Press, the Christchurch morning daily newspaper, having decided against a career in the Anglican ministry. At the same time, he also started a lifelong friendship with Denis Glover and contributed to the Caxton Press, submitting some of his poems. He then taught English at Auckland University from 1950 to 1976, during which he spent much time at his holiday home on Lone Kauri Road in the central Waitākere Ranges. The ranges and Karekare Beach became major features of his later work.

Personal life Curnow married Elizabeth "Betty" Le Cren at St Mary's Church, Timaru, on 26 August 1936. The marriage was dissolved in 1965, but they had a daughter and two sons, one of whom is New Zealand poet and art critic Wystan Curnow. His second marriage was to Jenifer Curnow (née Tole), a librarian and scholar of Māori culture. He was buried at Purewa Cemetery in the Auckland suburb of Meadowbank.

Career Curnow wrote a long-running weekly satirical poetry column under the pen-name of Whim Wham for his series of publications such as The Press starting in 1931 and The New Zealand Herald published from 1951-1988 – a period in which he turned his perspective and knowledge of many world issues, from Franco, Hitler, Vietnam, Apartheid, and the White Australia policy, to the internal politics of Walter Nash, the eras of Robert Muldoon and David Lange. Interspersed with humorous commentary on light-hearted subjects such as New Zealand's affinity towards rugby.

Curnow's publication Book of New Zealand Verse (1945) is seen as a landmark in New Zealand literature. He is, however, more celebrated as poet than as a satirist. His poetic works are heavily influenced by his training for the Anglican ministry, and subsequent rejection of that calling, with Christian imagery, myth and symbolism being included frequently, particularly in his early works (such as 'Valley of Decision'). He draws consistently on his experiences in childhood to shape a number of his poems, reflecting perhaps a childlike engagement with the environment in which he grew up, these poems bringing the hopeful, curious, questioning voice that a childlike view entails. Curnow's work of course is not all so innocently reflective. The satirist in Curnow is certainly not pushed aside in his poetic works, but is explored instead with a greater degree of emotional connectivity and self-reflection.

Curnow's works concerning the New Zealand landscape and the sense of isolation experienced by one who lives in an island colony are perhaps his most moving and most deeply pertinent works regarding the New Zealand condition. His landscape/isolation centred poetry reflects varying degrees of engaged fear, guilt, accusation, rage and possessiveness, creating an important but, both previously and still, much neglected dialogue with the New Zealand landscape. He positions himself as an outside critic (he was far less religiously and politically involved than contemporaries like James K. Baxter, and far more conventional in his lifestyle also) and though perhaps less impassioned in his writing than his contemporaries, his poetic works are both prophetic and intelligent.

Honours and awards In the 1986 Queen's Birthday Honours, Curnow was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire, for services to literature. Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry, 1989 On 6 February 1990, Curnow was the fourteenth appointee to The Order of New Zealand."Honours and Awards" (15 February 1990) 23 New Zealand Gazette 445 at 446. New Zealand 1990 Commemoration Medal New Zealand Book Award for Poetry; 1958, 1963, 1975, 1980, 1983, 1987, 2001 Commonwealth Poetry Prize 1988 (for Continuum) Cholmondeley Award, 1992 (other winners that year: Donald Davie, Carol Ann Duffy, and Roger Woddis) A W Reed Lifetime Achievement Award, 2000

Bibliography 1933: Valley of Decision : Poems. Auckland : Auckland University College Students' Association PressWeb page titled "Allen Curnow: New Zealand Literature File" at the University of Auckland Library website, accessed 26 April 2008 1933: Another Argo: three poems from the Caxton Club Press (including "Doom at sunrise"), Christchurch: Caxton Club Press 1935: Three poems: Aspect of Monism, Restraint, The Wilderness, Christchurch: Caxton Club Press 1935: Poetry and Language, Christchurch: Caxton Club Press 1937: Enemies : Poems 1934–36, Christchurch: Caxton Press,1937 1939: Not in Narrow Seas : Poems with Prose, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1940: Present for Hitler and Other Verses, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1941: Recent Poems. By Allen Curnow, A. R. D. Fairburn, Denis Glover, R. A. K. Mason, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1941: Island and Time, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1942: Landfall in Unknown Seas, poem with music by Douglas Lilburn 1942: Whim-Wham. Verses, 1941–42, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1943: Whim-Wham. Verses, 1943, Wellington: Progressive Publishing Society Circa 1946 (year uncertain): Sailing or Drowning: Poems, Wellington: Progressive Publishing Society 1946: Jack Without Magic: Poems, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1949: At Dead Low Water, and Sonnets, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1949: The Axe: a Verse Tragedy, Christchurch: Caxton Press, 1949 [i.e. 1950] 1957: Poems 1949–57, Wellington: Mermaid Press Circa 1957 (year uncertain): The Hucksters and the University : or, Out of Site, Out of Mind; or Up Queen Street Without a Paddle. A happy little poem for all the family ... read by the author at a public poetry reading in the Auckland City Art Gallery on 24 May 1957, Auckland: Pilgrim Press (broadsheet) 1957: Mr Huckster of 1958 : another and still happier little poem..., Auckland: Pilgrim Press (broadsheet) 1958: Bright Sky, verse play, unpublished, cyclostyled copy held in University of Auckland Library, NZ Glass Case 1959: Best of Whim-Wham, Hamilton: Paul's Book Arcade 1959: Moon Section, unpublished play, performed 1959 1960: On the Tour : Verwoerd Be Our Vaatchwoerd..., Auckland: Pilgrim Press (broadsheet) 1961: The Overseas Expert, unpublished playscript in University of Auckland Library, New Zealand Glass Case 1962: A Small Room With Large Windows, London: Oxford University Press 1967: Whim Wham Land, Auckland: B. & J. Paul 1972: Four Plays, Wellington: A.W. and A.H. Reed, (Contains: The Axe, The Overseas Expert, The Duke's Miracle, Resident of Nowhere) 1972: Trees, Effigies, Moving Objects: a Sequence, Wellington: Catspaw Press 1973: An Abominable Temper, and Other Poems, Wellington: Catspaw Press 1974: Collected Poems 1933–1973, Wellington: A.W. and A.H. Reed 1979: An Incorrigible Music, Dunedin: Auckland University Press 1982: Editor, Allen Curnow Selected Poems, Auckland: Penguin 1982: You Will Know When You Get There: Poems 1979, Auckland: Auckland University Press 1986: The Loop in Lone Kauri Road, Auckland: Auckland University Press 1987: Look Back Harder: Critical Writings 1935–1984, edited with an introduction by Peter Simpson, Auckland: Auckland University Press 1988: Continuum: New and Later Poems 1972–1988, Auckland: Auckland University Press 1990: Selected Poems 1940–1989, London: Viking 1994: Looking West, Late Afternoon, Low Water, Limited edition, designed and made by Alan Loney in collaboration with Elizabeth Serjeant, Auckland: Holloway Press Penguin Modern Poets 7, second series (1996) with Donald Davie and Samuel Menashe 1996: The Scrap-book; limited edition published in conjunction with Writers' and Readers' Week, 12–17 Mar 1996, Wellington: Wai-te-ata Press 1997: Early Days Yet : New and Collected Poems 1941–1997, Auckland: Auckland University Press 2001: The Bells of Saint Babel's: poems 1997–2001, Auckland: Auckland University Press 2005: Whim Wham's New Zealand: The Best of Whim Wham 1937–1988, edited by Terry Sturm

Edited 1945: Book of New Zealand Verse 1923–45, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1951: Book of New Zealand Verse 1923–50, Christchurch: Caxton Press 1960: Penguin Book of New Zealand Verse, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books

Documentary

Curnow was the subject of the 2001 documentary Early Days Yet, directed by Shirley Horrocks. Filmed in the final months of Curnow's life, it records him talking about his life and work, and visiting the setting of some of his important poems.

References

External links from the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography Poems by Allen Curnow Allen Curnow Papers at the Alexander Turnbull Library