Cilla McQueen

Last updated

Cilla McQueen

Cilla McQueen MNZM (cropped).jpg
McQueen in 2020
BornPriscilla Muriel McQueen
(1949-01-22) 22 January 1949 (age 75)
Birmingham, England
OccupationPoet
NationalityNew Zealand
Notable awards
Spouse
(m. 19741986)

Priscilla Muriel McQueen MNZM (born 22 January 1949) is a New Zealand poet and three-time winner of the New Zealand Book Award for Poetry. [1] [2]

Contents

Early years and education

McQueen was born on 22 January 1949 in Birmingham, England. [3] Her family moved to New Zealand when she was four. She was educated at Columba College in Dunedin and University of Otago (Master's with first-class Honours in 1971). [4] She was awarded an honorary Doctorate in Literature by University of Otago in 2008. [5]

Career

A poet and artist, she has published many collections, including two sound recordings and two selected works, of her poetry. In 2009 [6] she was named New Zealand Poet Laureate. She also received the Prime Minister's Awards for Literary Achievement (Poetry) in 2010. [7] Other awards include: NZ Book Award for Poetry 1983, 1989 and 1991; Robert Burns Fellowship at Otago University 1985 & 1986; Fulbright Visiting Writer's Fellowship 1985; Inaugural Australia-New Zealand Writer's Exchange Fellowship 1987; Goethe Institute Scholarship to Berlin 1988; NZ Queen Elizabeth Arts Council Scholarship in Letters 1992. Her most recent works are In a Slant Light, a poet's memoir (2016, Otago University Press), Poeta: Selected and New Poems (2018, Otago University Press), and a chapbook Qualia that is bundled with five other chapbooks by New Zealand poets in Bundle 1 (Maungatua Press 2020).

In 1999 McQueen was awarded the Southland Art Foundation Artist in Residence award, which allowed her to develop both poetry and painting simultaneously. Recent exhibitions of her art work include "Picture Poem", works by Cilla McQueen and Joanna Paul, at the Hocken Library, Dunedin, 2015 and an exhibition of intuitive musical scores, "What Happens", at the Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, 2015.

Cilla McQueen's poems include themes of homeland and loss, indigeneity, colonisation and displacement. She writes as a descendant of the people of the remote (and now abandoned) archipelago of St Kilda in the Outer Hebrides. Her writing also reflects her engagement with the history and present reality of the Maori people of Murihiku.

In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, McQueen was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services as a poet. [8]

Personal life

McQueen was married to New Zealand artist Ralph Hotere from 1973 until the 1990s, and together they set up a studio and living space at Careys Bay, near Port Chalmers. She currently lives in Bluff, at the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island.[ citation needed ]

Works

McQueen's work includes a variety of poetry books and poems over the past twenty-five years, including these volumes: [9] [10]

Plaque dedicated to Cilla McQueen in Dunedin, on the Writers' Walk on the Octagon Cilla McQueen memorial plaque in Dunedin.jpg
Plaque dedicated to Cilla McQueen in Dunedin, on the Writers' Walk on the Octagon

Related Research Articles

Fleur Adcock is a New Zealand poet and editor, of English and Northern Irish ancestry, who has lived much of her life in England. She is well-represented in New Zealand poetry anthologies, was awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from Victoria University of Wellington, and was awarded an OBE in 1996 for her contribution to New Zealand literature. In 2008 she was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hone Tuwhare</span> New Zealand poet

Hone Peneamine Anatipa Te Pona Tuwhare was a noted Māori New Zealand poet. He is closely associated with The Catlins in the Southland region of New Zealand, where he lived for the latter part of his life.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bill Manhire</span> New Zealand poet, short story writer and professor

William Manhire is a New Zealand poet, short story writer, emeritus professor, and New Zealand's inaugural Poet Laureate (1997–1998). He founded New Zealand's first creative writing course at Victoria University of Wellington in 1975, founded the International Institute of Modern Letters in 2001, and has been a strong promoter of New Zealand literature and poetry throughout his career. Many of New Zealand's leading writers graduated from his courses at Victoria. He has received many notable awards including a Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement in 2007 and an Arts Foundation Icon Award in 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jenny Bornholdt</span> New Zealand poet

Jennifer Mary Bornholdt is a New Zealand poet and anthologist. She was New Zealand's Poet Laureate in 2005-2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brian Turner (New Zealand poet)</span> New Zealand poet

Brian Lindsay Turner is a New Zealand poet and author. He played hockey for New Zealand in the 1960s; senior cricket in Dunedin and Wellington; and was a veteran road cyclist of note. His mountaineering experience includes an ascent of a number of major peaks including Aoraki / Mount Cook.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Brasch</span> New Zealand poet, literary editor and arts patron

Charles Orwell Brasch was a New Zealand poet, literary editor and arts patron. He was the founding editor of the literary journal Landfall, and through his 20 years of editing the journal, had a significant impact on the development of a literary and artistic culture in New Zealand. His poetry continues to be published in anthologies today, and he provided substantial philanthropic support to the arts in New Zealand, including by establishing the Robert Burns Fellowship, the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship and the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago, by providing financial support to New Zealand writers and artists during his lifetime, and by bequeathing his extensive collection of books and artwork in his will to the Hocken Library and the University of Otago.

O.E. Middleton was a New Zealand writer of short stories, described as belonging to the vernacular critical realist tradition of Frank Sargeson. He was the brother of noted New Zealand novelist Ian Middleton, and like him also blind from middle age. Mentored by Frank Sargeson in Auckland in the late 1950s, he moved to Dunedin to take up the Robert Burns Fellowship (1970) at the University of Otago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincent O'Sullivan (New Zealand writer)</span> New Zealand writer and academic (1937–2024)

Sir Vincent Gerard O'Sullivan was a New Zealand poet, short story writer, novelist, playwright, critic, editor, biographer, librettist, and academic. From 1988 to 2004 he was a professor of English literature at Victoria University of Wellington, and in 2013 he was appointed the New Zealand Poet Laureate.

Ruth Minnie Mumford, better known by her pen name Ruth Dallas, was a New Zealand poet and children's author.

Fiona Farrell is a New Zealand poet, fiction and non-fiction writer and playwright.

The New Zealand Poet Laureate is a poet appointed by the National Library of New Zealand to represent New Zealand's community of poets, to promote and advocate for poetry, and to produce a number of published works during their three-year tenure as laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Eggleton</span> New Zealand poet and writer

David Eggleton is a New Zealand poet, critic and writer. Eggleton has been awarded the Ockham New Zealand Book Award for poetry and in 2019 was appointed New Zealand Poet Laureate, a title he held until 2022. Eggleton's work has appeared in a multitude of publications in New Zealand and he has released over 18 poetry books (1986–2001) with a variety of publishers, including Penguin.

Joanna Margaret Paul was a New Zealand visual artist, poet and film-maker.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter Olds</span> New Zealand poet (1944–2023)

Peter John Olds was a New Zealand poet from Dunedin. He was regarded as being a significant contributor within New Zealand literary circles, in particular, having an influence with younger poets in the 1970s. Olds held the University of Otago Robert Burns Fellowship and was the inaugural winner of the Janet Frame Literary Award. During the 1970s he spent time in the community of Jerusalem with James K Baxter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emma Neale</span> New Zealand novelist and poet

Emma Neale is a novelist and poet from New Zealand.

Kay McKenzie Cooke is a poet from New Zealand.

Rhian Gallagher is a poet from New Zealand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Harlow</span> New Zealand poet

Michael Harlow is a poet, publisher, editor and librettist. A recipient of the Katherine Mansfield Menton Fellowship (1986) and the University of Otago Robert Burns Fellowship (2009), he has twice been a poetry finalist in the New Zealand Book Awards. In 2018 he was awarded the Prime Minister's Award for Literary Achievement, alongside playwright Renée and critic and curator Wystan Curnow Harlow has published 12 books of poetry and one book on writing poetry.

Iain Malcolm Lonie was a British-born New Zealand poet and a historian of ancient Greek medicine. His academic career was spent between New Zealand, Australia and England. He read classics at the University of Cambridge, lectured at universities in both Australia and New Zealand, worked as a research fellow for the Wellcome Trust, and wrote a definitive textbook on the Hippocratic texts On Generation, On the Nature of the Child and Diseases IV.

Judith Muriel Lonie was an Australian poet. She published one volume of poetry during her lifetime, with a second published posthumously; her poetry was often about personal or intimate subjects but treated in an impersonal way. Her poems have been included in several anthologies. Her husband, the New Zealand poet Iain Lonie, wrote three volumes of poetry about the intense grief he felt after her death.

References

  1. New Zealand Poetry – Biography – Cilla McQueen
  2. Cilla McQueen, A Wind Harp, Otago University Press, New Zealand
  3. White, Helen Watson (1 November 2016). "Astonishing Writing". Landfall. Retrieved 8 June 2024.
  4. "McQUEEN, Cilla". Archived from the original on 13 March 2016. Retrieved 2 February 2006.
  5. University of Otago 2008 Annual Report
  6. "The New Zealand Poet Laureate blog: Cilla McQueen, New Zealand Poet Laureate 2009-2011". www.poetlaureate.org.nz. Retrieved 7 February 2016.
  7. "Previous winners". Creative New Zealand . Retrieved 24 October 2013.
  8. "Queen's Birthday honours list 2020". Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. 1 June 2020. Retrieved 1 June 2020.
  9. National Library, Cilla McQueen, Books
  10. Cilla McQueen – NZ Literature File – LEARN – The University Of Auckland Library Archived March 6, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
Cultural offices
Preceded by New Zealand Poet Laureate
2009–2011
Succeeded by