New Zealand Writers

SMAILL, Anna

Smaill’s deft ability with language, her concentrated care really means that whatever she writes about is illuminated in an extraordinary way.

– Paola Bilbrough, New Zealand Books October 2006

Smaill, Anna (1979 – ) is a poet. Born in Auckland, she graduated from Auckland University with a Masters in English Literature and from Victoria University of Wellington with a Masters in Creative Writing.

Smaill’s first collection of poetry, The Violinist in Spring, was published in 2006 and was listed as one of the best books of 2006 by the Listener. Many reviewers have commented on the ‘music’ in the poems, perhaps influenced by Smaill’s studies in music and violin performance. Writing in New Zealand Books, Paola Bilbrough comments that ‘Smaill has a flair for graceful matter-of-factness, a deceptive simplicity, which makes her work seem effortless…The Violinist is also a meditation on what it means to be alive. It is, says Smaill, ‘braving the bewilderment of a story’s merciless onward bent/without letting story desert you.’

Smaill’s poems have been widely published in Sport, Landfall and the Listener. Her poems have been selected for Best New Zealand Poems in both 2002 and 2005.

Smaill is currently living and studying in London.

(KM)