James K. Baxter: Poems Selected & Introduced By Sam Hunt. Auckland University Press, 2009. $29.99. ISBN 978-186940-434-5

Rangi Faith

There are few precedents set for an anthology such as this - poems written by one poet and chosen by another - but both of these poets, and the poems, are familiar to most New Zealanders. Sam Hunt has collected fifty of James K. Baxter's poems, putting them together into a slim, easily accessible volume.

Here are two writers who are hand in glove with each other. One is the selector, the admirer, the story-teller, the other is the writer, the ‘hippy' (as Baxter was seen then), the social activist. This is one poet paying homage to another. Sam Hunt has always wanted to do this, and it has come at a good point in his writing journey. James K. Baxter influenced Sam Hunt in a number of ways, and these poems are in a sense a personal, historical and emotional record of both poets - the poems reflecting the steps in their pathways through poetry.

Hunt's introduction to this book is essential reading for the insight it gives into his choice of the fifty poems. His recounting of the effect his recitation of ‘Evidence at the Witch Trails' had on one of the Christian brothers at St Peter's College is hilarious. Baxter did invite Hunt to stay with him at Jerusalem. For a good number of reasons Hunt didn't go. He also says he thought Jerusalem was in the Middle East! His refusal was the sign of a poet who was developing his craft but who was very aware at a young age (19) that he was on a different and independent path.

In this book Hunt has assembled humorous poems, political comments, ballads, children's poems, and good descriptive pieces. The book begins with the iconic ‘High Country Weather' (written when Baxter was about 19 and Sam was only one year old!):

Alone we are born
And die alone;
Yet see the red-gold cirrus
Over snow-mountain shine.

The book ends with ‘He Waiata Mo Te Kare' - written by Baxter in his last year in Jerusalem. It echoes the losses he faced:

To you my love is a pendant
Of inanga greenstone,
Too hard to bite,
Cut from a boulder underground.
You can put it in a box
Or wear it over your heart.
One day it will grow warm...

In ‘Kumara Poem (for Sam Hunt)' we get a glimpse of Baxter in his final days:

...my feet are nailed here to the ground
the house of words has fallen down
and this old kumara will rot
while the young red ones grow slowly...

Sam Hunt was introduced to the work of Baxter with the publication of ‘Howrah Bridge and other poems'. He also read with him, and a literary correspondence of various poems was developed between them. Baxter's ‘Letter To Sam Hunt', page 84, was written in response to Sam's own ‘Reply to a Pig Island Letter'. Baxter died in 1972. Hunt received possibly one of Baxter's last poems in the post a week or two later. It was called ‘Jerusalem Blues 2'. In the poem Baxter (aged 46) sees himself as:

An old man with a smoke
I sit in the transport shelter
where the flies buzz in and out
watching the crates and mailbags

For Sam Hunt, the poems are like old friends. Each is a touchstone in the short path he has taken with one of our major writers. In some indefinable way he is linked to each poem, watching them going out and coming back again with each tide. Finally, a quote from Hunt in his introduction : " This is why I wanted to do this book, so that people can read some of the poems that may have slipped under the radar, to see some of the stars in the constellation of James K. Baxter."

 

 



Rangi Faith lives in North Canterbury. He is currently completing a new book of poetry. 

 


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