David Eggleton, New Zealand Poet Laureate 2019–2021

David Eggleton lives in Otepoti/Dunedin, Aotearoa New Zealand. He is a poet, writer and critic whose writing has appeared in a wide variety of New Zealand publications.

As a poet he has presented his poems in many venues to all kinds of audiences. He began reciting his poetry at rock music gigs in the early 1980s and remains interested in presenting poetry in as many media contexts as possible, keeping poetry live as well as vital. His poems have featured in murals, in short films, on T-shirts, in shop window displays, been written on pavements and included in art gallery exhibitions. A TV documentary: ‘For Arts Sake — Art and Politics — Performance Poet David Eggleton’ won First Prize for TV Arts Documentary in the Qantas Media Awards in 1997.

The editor of ‘Landfall’ between 2011 and 2018, he also edited the widely distributed free street arts magazine ‘The Cafe Reader’ between 2014 and 2018. A noted arts reviewer, he has received the Reviewer of the Year Award six times at the New Zealand Book Awards.

His first collection of poems, ‘South Pacific Sunrise’, was co-winner of the PEN Best First Book of Poetry Award in 1987. His seventh collection of poems, ‘The Conch Trumpet’, won the 2016 Ockham New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. In 2016 he also received the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Poetry. In 2018, his eight collection of poems, ‘Edgeland’, was published by Otago University Press.

David Eggleton has been described as a beatnik bop poet, performing with the perpetual motion of a jiver down at a rock and roll dance-hall on Saturday night. He has also been called a visible ghost-writer, an anonymous voice-over, a shape-shifting poet in the street — a freestyling surrealist and lyrical word-spinner rhyming to a rhythmic beat.

Links

• Academy of New Zealand Literature Te Whare Matauhi o Aotearoa — ANZL member 
• New Zealand Book Council — Writers files
• New Zealand Poetry Shelf interviews David Eggleton — Poetry is a kind of verbal tic; it runs in parallel with consciousness
• New Zealand Electronic Poetry Centre — Biography and poems 
• The Poetry Archive — Biography
• The Best American Poetry 2018 — Poetry from Aotearoa New Zealand 8 — David Eggleton’s ‘Painting Mount Taranaki’
• Stuff — Kiwi poet David Eggleton reveals his inspirations
• New Zealand Poetry Shelf — Poetry winner, David Eggleton’s seven best things to make a poem memorable
• New Zealand Poetry Shelf — Poetry Shelf poet’s choice David Eggleton makes some picks;
• New Zealand Poetry Shelf — Poetry shelf The Summer Season: Poets pick poems — David Eggleton picks Ian Wedde
• Otago University Press — Books by author
• Te Ara The Encyclopedia of New Zealand — David Eggleton in performance
• Book Council — Mansfield Questionnaire: David Eggleton
• And bottle washer blog — Waipounama Wall poem by David Eggleton
• Eldernet Gazette — Liam butler interviews poet David Eggleton
• University of Hawai’i — David Eggleton
• Otago University Press — Alan Roddick launches Edgeland and other poems by David Eggleton