Elizabeth Edwina SmitherMNZM (born 15 September 1941) is a New Zealand poet and writer.
Life and career
Smither was born in New Plymouth, and worked there part-time as a librarian.[1][2]
Her first collection of poetry, Here Come the Clouds, was published in 1975, when she was in her mid-thirties.[1] She has since published over fifteen poetry collections, as well as several short story collections and novels.[3] Her work has won numerous notable awards, including three times the top poetry award at the New Zealand Book Awards.[4] In 2002, she was named the New Zealand Poet Laureate.[2]
Harry Ricketts, writing for The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, describes her strength as being "the short poem, usually but not always unrhymed, witty, stylish and intellectually curious". He also notes that her poetry tends to feature figures from literature and legends, as well as Catholicism.[1]
Smither, Elizabeth (1975). Here come the clouds : poems. A. Taylor.
You’re Very Seductive William Carlos Williams (1978)
The Sarah Train (1980)
The Legend of Marcello Mastroianni's wife (1981)
Casanova's Ankle (1981)
Shakespeare Virgins (1983)
Professor Musgrove's Canary (1986)
Gorilla/ Guerilla (1986)
Animaux (1988)
A Pattern of Marching (1989)
A Cortège of Daughters (1993)
The Tudor Style: Poems New and Selected (1993)
A question of gravity: selected poems. Arc Publications. 2004. ISBN978-1-900072-75-5.
— (2007). The year of adverbs. Auckland University Press.
Horse Playing the Accordion (Ahadada Books, Tokyo & Toronto, 2009)
The Love of One Orange
— (2013). The blue coat. Auckland University Press.
— (2013). Ruby Duby Du. Illustrated by Kathryn Madill. Cold Hub Press.
Anthologies
Jenny Bornholdt; Gregory O'Brien; Mark Williams, eds. (1997). An anthology of New Zealand poetry in English. Oxford University Press New Zealand. ISBN978-0-19-558338-0.
