Nelson and Marlborough

Below are the literary figures and literary quotes from the Nelson and Marlborough region of the Aotearoa New Zealand Literary Map.

Literary Figures

Ferntown
Jean Devanny 1894-1962

Takaka
Leo Benseman 1912-1986
Yvonne du Fresne 1929
Beverley Dunlop 1935

Nelson
John Caselberg 1927-2004
Michael Henderson 1942-1998
Michael Jackson 1940
Joanna Orwin 1944
Alistair Paterson 1929
John Weir 1935

Picton
Kim Eggleston 1960
Nelle Scanlan 1882-1968

Tuamarina
Eileen Duggan 1894-1972

Blenheim
John Newton 1959
Ian Wedde 1946

Literary Quotes

'The sea was white today, like zinc, and the sky so pale one had to concentrate to bring out the blue...'
Maurice Gee on Nelson Loving Ways

'No moon and a black sea,
The daytime birds have flown
To their night time places,
The incoming tide creeps

Over Farewell Spit.
Soon waves will wash the rocks
Outside our windows,
Spraying the glass with salt.

Twenty-four hours from now
Birds, land and sea
Will repeat it all again.
We'll be gone by then

Back to that northern
Beach across the Strait,
With far fewer sea birds
But Kapiti close at hand.

There we watch the sun go down
Where the Spit lies out of sight,
Believing love, like them
Returns again and again.'
JC Sturm 'The last night at Collingwood'

'The tides run up the Wairau
That fights against their flow.
My heart and it together
Are running salt and snow.

For though I cannot love you,
Yet, heavy, deep, and far,
Your tide of love come swinging,
Too swift for me to bar.

Some thought of you must linger,
A salt of pain in me,
For oh what running river
Can stand against the sea?'
Eileen Duggan