New Zealand Writers

COOKE, Kay McKenzie

Writes about landscape, family, the everyday.

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COOKE, Kay McKenzie (1953-) is a poet and short story writer.

Cooke was born in and raised in Southland. She is of Kati Mamoe, Ngati Kahungunu, Cockney and Northern Irish descent.

Cooke attended Dunedin Teacher’s College in the 1970s, and has continued to live and work in Dunedin. For the last 18 years she has worked in the Early Childhood Sector. She is currently the lecturer in charge of the New Zealand National Nanny Certificate at Otago Polytechnic.

Cooke’s poetry has appeared in Takahe, the NZ Listener, Sport, JAAM, Southern Ocean Review, Trout, Glottis, and Poetry NZ. Her work has also been anthologised in the Poetry Society of NZ Anthologies, including a haiku published in the NZ Haiku Anthology (2ed.)

Cooke’s first book of poetry feeding the dogs was published in 2002. Best described as reflexive, the collection is autobiographical and in it Cooke writes about town, landscape, family and everyday life.

When describing the collection Cooke writes that it comes from ‘the sense of isolation that I felt living on a farm in Otama Valley, with tussock-covered hills and no shops and bus trips to school.’

Cooke has also had a story produced for the children’s television show Chatterbox.

Kay McKenzie Cooke lives in Dunedin.

(LK)

Updated Information

At the Monatana New Zealand Book Awards 2003 the Jessie Mackay Best First Book Award for poetry was presented to Kay McKenzie Cooke for her anthology, Feeding the Dogs.