3 April 2013

The Writers' Plaques, Christchurch, New Zealand

In 1997 the New Zealand Society of Authors (Canterbury branch), financially aided by The Community Trust, placed 32 plaques dedicated to writers in the pavements in various parts of Christchurch. With the earthquakes some of them have gone, although probably no one knows how many because a large number of streets in central Christchurch remain cordoned off. I searched for as many as I could find.

Outside the Caxton Press, Victoria Street:

'DENIS JAMES
MATTHEWS GLOVER
D.S.C., B.A., HON.D.LITT.
 
1912 – 1980
 
When Tom and Elizabeth took a farm,
The bracken made their bed,
And Quardle oodle wardle doodle,
The magpies said.
 
The Magpies'
 
 –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
Outside Christ's College, Rolleston Avenue, three plaques:
 
'JAMES
COURAGE
 
NOVELIST
 
1905 – 1963
 
"...as for the schoolmasters, I'd cheerfully
dump the whole crew, my revered
father included... he doesn't have the
faintest notion he's educating boys
for colonial life, not English; for the
farm, not the Foreign Office.
 
 The Young Have Secrets (1954)'
 
'GAVIN
BISHOP
 
1946 –
 
CHIDLREN'S AUTHOR
AND ARTIST
 
"Katarina made some tea and
some kai, then she and Banjo sat
on the back of the verandah, talking
about when they were children
in the Waikato ... And in the
evenings that followed, with her
mokopuna gathered around her,
Katarina would recall the old
whakatauki – Mate kainga taui,
ora kainga rua – A person is
lucky indeed to have two homes
rather than one."
 
From Katarina, 1990'
 
'D'ARCY
CRESSWELL
 
1896 – 1960
 
POET, JOURNALIST,
DRAMATIST,
AUTOBIOGRAPHER
 
"Farewell Cathedral City! – and its Square,
Its Founder foundering in a pot of tar.
Farewell you City Fathers! Have a care,
Tho' you be down'd, you not yet feathered are."
 
From "Lyttleton Harbour," 1936'
 
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
There are a number of plaques (not all of which are clearly visible at the moment due to the cordon) outside the Arts Centre, the Old University:
 
'MERVYN
THOMPSON
 
PLAYWRIGHT
 
1935 – 1992
 
Though at times my work is
ignored by infidels and scorned
by the cold of heart, the battle
on the cultural front
is slowly being won.
 
All My Lives (1980)'

'STEVAN
ELDRED-GRIGG
 
NOVELIST, SOCIAL HISTORIAN
 
1952 –
 
"...in my search for truth I found
there were some books about
Phillipstown, which to me had
always been just another stretch
of asphalt and soot and iron; it
turned out to have history.
Phillipstown, a romance,
a meaning!"
 
Oracles and Miracles (1987)'
 
'EDITH SEARLE
GROSSMANN
 
1863 – 1931
 
GRADUATED M.A. (HONS)
FROM
CANTERBURY COLLEGE
1885
 
It is no use discussing whether
men are better than women...
What we do know for certain is
that men have had dominion over
women, and that they have
shamefully abused their power.
It is forfeited.
It must cease forever.
 
From Hermione: a Knight of
the Holy Ghost,
by Edith Searle Grossmann'
 
'EDITH NGAIO
MARSH
 
1895 – 1982
 
EDUCATED AT
CANTERBURY COLLEGE
SCHOOL OF ART
 
Miss Carter slid out of her
kimono and with a sort of
bovine good-nature, eased
herself into position...
The gas heater roared and
the great lamp above the
throne held the motionless
figure in a pool of light.
 
From Black Beech and Honeydew
by Ngaio Marsh'
 
'KERI
HULME
 
1941 –
 
E, wrap me in the black bark-cloth
                                  strew kokowai
                               let there be
                               a paua-crafted hook
                               laid handily
                               to show my trade
                                                               catching dreams
 
                                            Saying Nothing / In the End'
 
'KARL
POPPER
1902 – 1994
RENOWNED PHILOSOPHER,
OF SCIENCE, SOCIAL
AND POLITICAL THINKER,
LECTURER, BROADCASTER
AND AUTHOR
 
"If in this book harsh words
are spoken about some of the
greater among the intellectual
leaders of mankind, my motive
is not, I hope, the wish to
belittle them. It springs rather
from my conviction that, if
our civilisation is to survive, we
must break with the habit of
deference to great men. Great
men may make great mistakes..."
 
From The Open Society and Its Enemies,
completed at Canterbury University College
in 1943, published in 1945.'
 
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
At 315-17 Montreal Street:
 
'DOROTHY
EDEN
 
1912 – 1982
 
NOVELIST AND
SHORT STORY WRITER
 
"My childhood on a lonely
New Zealand farm was the
most invaluable background
for developing imagination
... It taught me to love
spookiness and to know its
gripping effect ... I knew
with absolute certainty that
I would be a writer."
 
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
At 74 Armagh Street:
 
'ERROL
BRATHWAITE
 
1924 –
 
NOVELIST,
TRAVEL WRITER,
ANTHOLOGIST
 
"They turned a swampy,
scrub-covered waste into an
approximation of an English
cathedral town and a wilderness
into  something not far removed
from an English county."
 
From Sixty Red Night Caps, 1980'
 
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
Outside Old Magistrates Court, 84 Armagh Street, two plaques:
 
'BLANCHE EDITH
BAUGHAN
 
POET, REFORMER
 
1870 – 1958
 
Alive! Yes, Te Ika,
Of the Bone of the Past, of the Blood,
Of the Present,
Here, at the End of the Earth, in
the First of the Future,
Thou standest courageous and youthful,
A country to come
 
Maui's Fish'
 
'A.K.
GRANT
 
1941 – 2000
 
SATIRIST, SCRIPT WRITER,
LYRICIST, LAWYER
 
"The apple of self-knowledge
may also be the pineapple
of self-laceration, and it is
not for us to question
these arrangements."
 
From the preface to
I'm glad I asked you that, 1982'
 
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
 
Several other plaques are outside the Arts Centre, although within the fenced off area, and so more difficult to read:
 
'ARNOLD WALL
 
(1869 – 1966)
 
SCHOLAR, POET, ESSAYIST,
BROADCASTER, BOTANIST
 
"There lies in our city folded in the mist,
Like a great meadow in an early morn ...
Above us such an air as poets dream,
The clean and vast wing-winnowed clime of Heaven.
Each of her streets is closed with shining Alps,
Like Heaven at the end of long plain lives."
 
From "The City from the Hills", 1943'
 
'THOMAS ALLEN
MUNRO CURNOW
 
1911 – 2001
 
EDUCATED AT
CANTERBURY COLLEGE
 
from Island and Time(houses in central Christchurch, 1941)
 
Tentative the houses
Unhaunted over tombs;
Wind shakes the standing
Timber, shakes rooms
Where cold under rimu
Rafters they discover
The wind wet with change, and
The stranger for lover.'
 
'FIONA
FARRELL
 
1947 –
 
That I should touch your
skin thourhg the holes in your
tee-shirt

that we should exchange
ordinary tales...
 
From "Seven wishes"
Cutting Out, 1987'
 
'SUE
McCAULEY
 
NOVELIST
 
1941 –'
 
Unfortunately I was unable to fully transcribe this, so I leave the quotation out completely.
 
The links below may also be of interest:
 
–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––
Writers' Walk, Dunedin, New Zealand
The Wellington Writers Walk, North Island, New Zealand

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