New Zealand Writers
SMITHER, Elizabeth
The short poem, usually but not always unrhymed, witty, stylish and intellectually curious, has remained her forte.
- From The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature
- Updated Information
- Links
- KAPAI: Kids read more about Elizabeth here
- Writers in Schools: Elizabeth Smither’s involvement
Author entry from The Oxford Companion to New Zealand Literature, edited by Roger Robinson and Nelson Wattie (1998). About the Companion entries View list of Companion contributors
SMITHER, Elizabeth (1941– ), poet, novelist and short story writer, was born in New Plymouth where she works as a librarian.
She has published twelve collections of poems: Here Come the Clouds (1975); You’re Very Seductive William Carlos Williams (1978); The Sarah Train (1980); The Legend of Marcello Mastroianni’s wife (1981); Casanova’s Ankle (1981); Shakespeare Virgins (1983); Professor Musgrove’s Canary (1986); Gorilla/ Guerilla (1986); Animaux (1988); A Pattern of Marching (1989); A Cortège of Daughters (1993); The Tudor Style: Poems New and Selected (1993). There have also been two novels, First Blood (1983) and Brother-love Sister-love (1986); two collections of short stories, Nights at the Embassy (1990) and Mr Fish (1994); a book for children, Tug Brothers (1983); an edition of her journals, The Journal Box (1996); and co-edited with David *Hill The Seventies Connection (1987).
Amongst other awards, she has received the Scholarship in Letters in 1987 and 1992, and A Pattern of Marching won the Poetry Section of the 1990 New Zealand Book Awards.
Smither’s first collection, Here Come the Clouds, published in her mid-30s, at once established her distinctive, even idiosyncratic, poetic manner. The short poem, usually but not always unrhymed, witty, stylish and intellectually curious, has remained her forte, although ‘To Hugh a friend flying to London November 30 DC 10’, a 600-line poem in Professor Musgrove’s Canary, successfully transcends the ordinary limits of her miniaturist technique. As the titles of her collections suggest, literary and legendary figures often provide starting points for poems, a number of which are also characterised by a strong interest in Catholicism. In addition to more perennial subjects, her poetry, though never merely self-referential, celebrates the slipperiness and paradoxical nature of language. She has remarked that the poets she most admires are ‘tough’, citing as examples Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, e. e. cummings, Elizabeth Bishop, William Empson and John Berryman: ‘They don’t pull any punches; they’re like Humphrey Bogart. You have to use all your senses to crack them open.’ The same comment applies to the best of her own work.
Perhaps because she has been so prolific a poet, Smither’s fiction has tended to remain underrated. Like her poetry, her short stories often make use of a literary motif as a springboard: a phrase from Auden, a literary quiz, an academic’s journal, a replica of Keats’s death mask. The subsequent glimpses into the lives of the characters, usually women, are typified by an ironic sympathy with their ability or inability to deal with the vicissitudes of their relationships with men.
While adumbrating more clearly the strand of Catholicism which runs through her poetry, both Smither’s novels deal with areas central to Pakeha New Zealand experience: early settler days in First Blood and the mixed response of a contemporary New Zealander visiting England in Brother-love Sister-love. The former, set in nineteenth-century New Plymouth, explores the human, social and religious interactions which lead to the new settlement’s first murder when Cassidy, an Irish ex-militia man and itinerant worker, stabs a young widow, Mary McDavitt. Although deliberately omitting some of the more conventional features of the historical novel (there is, for instance, little attempt to imitate the spoken or written idiom of the time), First Blood nonetheless recreates a powerful sense of period and, flickering back and forth between its gallery of characters, builds up an evocative portrait of a small, intricate, vulnerable world. Brother-love Sister-love recounts a trip to England by Isobel, a New Zealand poet, to visit her expatriate brother James. The narrative technique is similar to that of First Blood; a range of viewpoints are played off against each other with Isobel’s as the dominant perspective. The deft satire of Isobel’s adventures among the London literati neatly complements the broader farce of her sculptor husband Angus’s attempts to épater the local bourgeoisie back in New Zealand. The rapid switches from character to character and scene to scene aptly mimic Isobel’s intense, somewhat uneasy reactions to the people and situations she encounters. HRi
Updated Information
Smither has published a third collection of short stories, The Mathematics of Jane Austen (1997), and a further volume of poetry, The Lark Quartet (1999).
The Lark Quartet won the Poetry category of the 2000 Montana New Zealand Book Awards.
Elizabeth Smither was named the 2002 Te Mata Poet Laureate.
Listening to the Everly Brothers and Other Stories (2002). Love, romance and relationships, with an array of brilliantly drawn characters. Stephen Stratford writes "...this is as good a collection as we'll get. thoroughly, resoundingly recommended."
The Sea Between Us (2003) is a novel which explores the differences between Australia and New Zealand. A thread of impetuous short-lived anger runs through the lives of the Berryman family: " there are eight sisters, but only four of us who count. I don't think I can love more than four."
The Sea Between Us was a finalist in the fiction category of the Montana New Zealand Book Awards 2004.
Her novel Different Kinds of Pleasure (Penguin, 2006) looks at what pleasure is and how it shapes people's lives.
Smither's latest collection of short stories The Girl Who Proposed (Cape Catley Ltd, 2008) was on the longlist for the 2008 Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.
Elizabeth Smither is available to talk to intermediate and secondary students. She is prepared to talk about poetry.
She would prefer to talk to small groups of less than 15 studentsand she is able to run workshops. She is prepared to travel out of town for Writers in Schools visits if time permits.
KIDS AUTHOR PICTURES AND INFORMATION
Elizabeth Smither Answers Some Questions
Where do you live?
New Plymouth
What kinds of books do you like to read?
Novels, thrillers, poetry and books about travel.
Who are your favourite writers?
Thom Gunn and Elizabeth Jane Howard.
Where do you get your ideas?
They usually come when I start writing.
What is the best thing about being a writer?
The pleasure of writing.
Some Special Questions for Primary School
Do you have any pets?
A marmalade cat and Australian terriers.
What is you favourite colour?
Red
Do you have a favourite food?
Chocolate
What’s your favourite movie?
Jules and Jim
What games or sports do you like?
Cricket
What’s the best part of being an author?
Meeting people and reading to them.
How do you make a book?
With a great deal of effort.
Where do you like to go for your holidays?
Somewhere I haven’t been in New Zealand or overseas.
What was the naughtiest thing you ever did at school?
I brought meat pies for my friends concealed in a big folded up black umbrella.
Some Questions for Secondary School
How did you start writing?
At school, mostly by enjoying English classes.
Who inspired you to start writing?
An English teacher called Miss Stewart.
What advice would you give someone wanting to be a writer?
Realise it is a lifetime job.
Is it hard to make a living as a writer in New Zealand?
Yes, you may need to have another job.
What were you like as a teenager?
Studious, mischievous, and energetic.
When did you know you were going to be a writer?
I have loved writing since I was at primary school and I used to often make up long sentences in my head and say them silently to myself. At high school my English teacher told me I should be a writer and I was so excited I jumped up and down like a Masai warrior on the sports field before going back to class.
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